


Inertia

by lifeofsnark



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
Genre: "Yer a jedi Rey", BUT LET US BE HONEST these two being fucked up TOGETHER is why we love them, Bondage, But it's also viewed as a kind of magic, Edging, F/M, Forced Orgasms, Hurt/Comfort, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Kylo kidnaps Rey, Like SO inappropriate, Loss of Virginity, My first Reylo fic!, Not a healthy relationship, Note there is no actual pregnancy in the story, Okay PLOT TAGS NOW:, Oral Sex, Rey is going to be a little fucked up and a lot angsty, Seriously I have such a kink for how powerful Kylo is, Setting: the wreckage of what used to be the US, Slow Burn, That's Not How The Force Works, The birth of Grey Force-users, There's a lot of "He could heave the mountains from their moorings" kind of bullshit going on, They form a Force bond out of a mutual need to stay alive, They still use the force, Which I guess is slightly different, briefly threatened with unwanted pregnancy, but also not the worst so there's that, content warning: POV character is, dystopian au, like so slow guys again I am the worst, lonely space babies being lonely together, lots of smut okay I don't even know, so they don't actually go to space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-02-22 16:12:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 40,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13170498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifeofsnark/pseuds/lifeofsnark
Summary: An object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.~~~In the wreckage of what was once the United States a new Empire is attempting to rise. After accidentally stumbling across the source of recent Force disturbances, Kylo Ren is sent to retrieve this unknowing Force user. They form a bond for mutual survival, and set themselves on a path that draws them closer and closer together.~~~Excerpt:Kylo didn’t have anything to say to that. “You could rule worlds,” he told her, his voice strong. “You could topple empires and mountains. You could rip magma from the core, you could drive islands into the sea, and yet you sit in here carving lines into the wall.”“I will carve my marks into the wall,” she said. “I will remind myself why I am here, everyday, from now until I leave this place.”“You’ll leave here under your own power,becauseof your power, or you’ll leave here in a burial jar,” he shot back, his temper rising to meet hers.





	1. Chapter 1

Rey lived in a world of contradictions. She lived in a world where skin could be instantly sealed, but most still died of infection. She lived in a world where some died of hunger while others toyed with the most lavish of foods. She lived in a world scattered with the wreckage of a fallen empire, and where one attempted to rise again.

 

She thought of this in an abstract way. Rey couldn't afford to be distracted from her work: scavengers who got distracted got dead in a very _definite_ way. It was hard even for healers to fix someone with a head smashed open like a gull’s egg.

 

“Yes,” she breathed as she peeked into the moldering ceiling of what had once been a work building. _People were people_ she thought to herself, _no matter the time_. Someone who had worked here once had stashed things for themselves in the ceiling of this room. Maybe it was to protect the objects, maybe to hide them. Rey didn’t know, Rey didn’t care. That person had effectively stocked away Rey’s meal for the day. This protopad was one of the better ones, one of the ones developed right before the Fall. The little white symbol, with leaf intact, had faded to yellow but that was okay. It would fetch a good price.

 

She shoved the protopad into her pack with the rest of her haul. The stairs here had been dismantled decades ago, the steel and wood taken for supplies, for warmth. That hadn’t stopped her; Rey had learned to climb before she’d learned to write her own name- after all, there had been no one around to stop her. She swung a leg over the edge of the floor while jauntily shoving the pack over her shoulder into the center of her back. She’d left a rope here for the past few days; she’d been confident that this wreck had had more secrets to give her. Now, though, Rey knew it was time to move on. She unclipped her rope, wrapped it over her other shoulder (Ertram had called it ‘Rambo-style’; Rey didn’t have the faintest idea who Rambo was) and began her descent. The walls had crumbled away, the chalky material gone damp and soft with age and exposure. Beneath the soft stuff, what they’d used before plastique, were hard cement bricks. Rey had punched hand holds in the soft stuff on the way up, and slunk her way back down using those same gaps.

 

Unfortunately for her, Rey weighed more now going down than she had when she’ gone up. She had the protopad, some wiring, the little spigot-like heads from the ceilings of blocked or forgotten rooms. She had funny little silvery wrappers from something, colorful and crinkly. Rey found it amusing that people had once had so much metal that they’d used it in wrappers.

 

The wall crumbled when she was halfway down it. She shrieked, but managed to flip herself over in the air. She thought if the fall had been just a second longer she could have gotten her knees beneath her, maybe landing cleanly in a roll.

 

Instead she smashed palm and chin-first into the rubble below. She hadn’t fallen _too_ far; after she managed to take in that first sweet gasp of air she inventoried the rest of her parts. Feet, knees, hips, back, arms. He head rang, and a tentative investigation revealed blood, red and metallic, dripping from a gash on Rey’s chin.

 

 _Worth it_ she wheezed to herself as she staggered out to the skimmer. It was an older model, but it functioned. That alone made it worth irons, and a lot of them. It was too important, though, too important to her survival and to her keeping her edge as a scavenger that survived more than one summer on the coast of used-to-be Georgia.

 

Rey clicked off her traps and theft-prevention alterations to the craft’s controls. She checked the netting on the side of her seat, secured her haul, and put the craft in gear. True to its name they skimmed over the ground, the little craft jolting when there was a sudden dip or hump in the terrain.

 

Her nest came into sight soon enough. To most it would have looked like just another sand dune, but to her it looked like home. _For now_ Rey reminded herself as she put the traps and alarms back into place on the skimmer. _Just until my family comes back._

 

It was cooler inside her little space. It had been a train once upon a time. It had carried people and goods up and down the coast until the Fall. Rey didn’t know how it had come to be here, whether or not there were rails buried beneath the sand, but she didn’t care. It was _hers._

 

Rey worked on the protopad until the sun had gone past the highest point in its path along the sky. Her stomach was rumbling, and she was dangerously low on water. She desperately wanted to avoid using her emergency water ration; the hottest part of the year was still to come. She had the sand out of the protopad eventually, and she added the copper she’d acquired today to the hidden stash from many days before.

 

She weighed the spool of carefully smoothed metal in her palm. _It’s enough,_ she thought. She headed towards her skimmer with a bit of bounce in her step. She would eat tonight, and if she was honest with herself (which she was- Rey was her only company, there was no point in lying to herself) she enjoyed the chance to verbally spar with Unkar Plutt. He was one of the… oddities that were becoming more and more common these days, especially this far out from anything resembling civilization.  She zoomed further south, waiting until the brown smear of Jakku was visible on the horizon.

 

Jakku had been a pretty little town once, a place called Brunswick. There was a picture of it from before the Fall hanging behind Plutt’s desk. There had been pretty white buildings and flowers and _trees,_ huge old trees that had thrown dappled light over the street.

 

Rey joined the line of scavengers milling around outside Plutt’s little stand. Ratkar was in front of her, his short form barely reaching Rey’s sternum. “Got anything good?” he asked in his wheezy leer.

 

“Maybe,” said Rey, shifting her weight and squinting against the sun. She’d heard somewhere (maybe from before the desert, with her parents- but no, _no,_ she wouldn’t think of that) that there were still places that got so cold water froze and fell from the sky as snow. Rey couldn’t imagine it. She couldn’t even really imagine trees.

 

She knew what to do here, what to do when the heat became so thick and overwhelming that it seemed her brain must have cooked. She planted her feet, bent her knees, and stopped trying to think. She retreated into the place that was inside but that was _not_ her, was something else entirely.

 

“Girl!”

 

She was jolted from the clear place when Plutt called her name and the scavenger behind her prodded Rey hard between the shoulders.

 

She pulled out the copper spool first. One of Plutt’s thin, pink eyebrows raised before returning to its normal spot on his thick puce skin. “Two InstaPaks,” he said.

 

“This is worth at least four,” said Rey, enjoying the chance to talk with someone (anyone, even this odd person).

 

“Jak brought in some earlier. Supply and demand, desert rat,” Plutt said. He grabbed two InstaPaks from the basket beside him and tossed them on the counter.

 

“Fine,” said Rey. She needed him to feel successful before pulling out the _real_ find.  She shoved the InstaPaks in her pocket and pulled the protopad from her bag.

 

Plutt’s little eyes lit greedily. “Fifteen ‘Paks and two irons,” he said.

 

Rey was surprised. She hadn’t thought it would be worth that much to him, not right at the beginning of negotiations. “Thirteen ‘Paks, two irons, and two extra rations of water.”

 

The water was what she really wanted. She’d take the irons since Plutt had offered, you never knew when real currency would come in handy, but you couldn’t drink irons. They couldn’t keep you alive on their own.

 

Plutt squinted at her. “Agreed,” he said.

 

Rey’s heart leapt, but she tried to keep her face impassive. Plutt shoved the ‘Paks, the irons, and the water vouchers to her. “You could have gotten more,” he said, a faint smile playing over his fleshy lips. “It’s an Apple.”

 

“What’s an apple?” asked Rey.

 

As she moved away from Plutt’s counter he pulled down the wooden shutter. “Closed for the day!” Plutt called over the groans and curses of those who had been in line behind her.

 

Rey tried to pay attention to those who had been behind her as she moved to the HydroPort. They _knew_ she had irons and InstaPaks on her; she wouldn’t be surprised if she was mobbed on the way to her skimmer.

 

She waited in another line, and this time Rey had trouble keeping a smile off her face. She was getting _two full_ water rations. That was more than a little peace of mind. If she was hurt (she knocked on the edge of HydroPort, she didn’t know why, really) she could afford to heal for a week without thirsting to death, maybe even a little longer.

 

“Two rations, please,” she said to the wizened little man working the pump. He squinted at the stubs, even holding them theatrically to the light, and begrudgingly handed her one of the large jugs of water. She held it awkwardly against her side and just had to drag the second jug behind her.

 

She was strapping them to the skimmer when Ratkar jumped onto the vehicle with a knife.  “Where’d you find them things? How do you do it?” he asked accusingly.

 

“I must just be better than you,” Rey said, jumping as high as she could. When she landed the skimmer rocked enough to overbalance Ratkar. She shoved him off the craft, put it in gear, and slowly began to move away. If Ratkar ran very fast he might be able to catch the skimmer; it wasn’t really designed to carry this much weight in the side pouches.

 

Rey made it out of Jakku safely. It was a longer trip home, and the sun was beginning to set as she dragged the water jugs (one at a time, now) into her home. She buried one there, in the sand beneath her pallet. It would be safe, and the dark sand would hopefully keep it slightly cooler than the air.

 

As the last burst of daylight reflected in the sand outside her little home Rey mixed a measure of water with one of the InstaPaks. It was a whole one, not half or even the stingy quarter ‘Pak on which she survived most days. She counted to ten as she watched the pak expand into a round of soft but mealy NutriLoaf. It was what she knew- this taste, everyday, for all of her days. She often forgot that anything else existed.

 

Belly pleasantly full, Rey glanced at the earliest stars before crawling over to her pallet. More by feel than by sight she pulled a knife (her one real weapon) out of her boot and scratched another silvery mark into the pewter finish of her home. She refused to think about how she was running out of space on the walls before rolling over and immediately falling asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey has a visitor from the First Order.

Rey woke with a jolt. It was still full dark out, and she knew she’d been woken by  _ something.  _ She’d been a scavenger alone in this desert for twenty years. She knew to trust her instincts, and right now they were screaming that  _ something was outside.  _

 

She grabbed her knife and slowly moved to the doorway of her nest. She couldn’t see much in the gloom, but she could hear the rasping of something (someone?) breathing heavily and the erratic thumps of footfalls in the sand. Rey groped for her little headlight, adjusted the strap between her first and second bun, and krept out the doorway, her light still off. She could hear the dry breathing even more loudly out here. It sounded like the intruder, whoever he was, was almost on top of her skimmer. 

 

She smacked the light on and leapt at the figure, knife out, all in one motion. It was a person, a male one. 

 

“Stop,” he choked. “Help me.” He slumped to his knees, his face white and coated in dust. 

 

“Who are you?” asked Rey, not going any closer, but not retreating either. 

 

“Odo. Sent by the First Order to gather reports on this sector. I had a cruiser malfunction. Dropped me in the desert. I’ve been walking all day.” 

 

He slumped over to the side at that point. 

 

Ray walked forward and quickly patted him down. She didn’t feel any blasters or weapons on him. That check done (you couldn’t be too careful out here) she took his pulse. She didn’t think he’d be able to fake that erratic beat (though what did she know?), so she put her little knife back in her boot and went inside her house for water.

 

Rey wanted to cry when Odo retched up his first cup of water. Odo must have seen her anguish, because he promised her as much water as she could want if only she’d get him to the Jakku outpost alive. That offer, more than anything, confirmed for Rey that this Odo wasn’t a local. No one who had lived out their days, one after another, under the broiling sun of the Great Southeast Desert would make an offer like that. 

 

The day had progressed to that grey-blue monochrome of pre-dawn when Odo was strong enough to sit on the skimmer without falling off it. Rey slowly piloted the craft south towards Jakku one more time. The little vehicle wasn’t made for two people, and Rey knew she’d have to put some serious maintenance into it when (she wouldn’t think the word  _ if,  _ she just wouldn’t) she made it home. 

 

The sky was pink with more than a little blue by the time they made it into Jakku. Rey slipped off the shuddering skimmer and banged on Plutt’s wooden shutter. 

 

“Plutt!” she yelled. “I know you’re in there!”

 

The shutter flew up and Rey was left looking into the irate and quickly reddening face of Plutt. 

 

“I’ve got a sick man, he says he’s from the First Order-”

 

The color was draining out of Plutt’s face as quickly as it had rushed in. “What’s his name?” the pink man asked in a smaller voice than Rey had ever heard. 

 

“Odo,” she said. She returned to the slim man now leaning against the skimmer. When she returned with Odo, Plutt was looking relieved. 

 

“We’ve got the reports you requested,” Plutt said. 

 

Odo waved a hand. “Not worried about that yet. I need help. Doesn’t this shithole have a med bay?”

 

Rey shook her head as Plutt said simply, “No.”

 

“Fine. Get me inside, send a comm to the First Order, and give this girl- what is your name?” Odo asked, interrupting himself. 

 

“Rey,” she said. 

 

“-give Rey as much water as she wants.”

 

“I can’t do that!” Plutt said. 

 

“Why not?” asked Odo, some starch coming into his voice. Rey was having less difficulty picturing him as a First Order officer. 

 

“Um…” Plutt seemed to realize his predicament. “The HydroPort isn’t here yet,” he said. 

 

“Then she can wait with us,”said Odo. 

 

Rey was begrudgingly let into Plutt’s office. They sent a message to the First Order and received a prompt reply. A med team were coming on another transport. Odo was given a InstaPak and several more glasses of water. 

 

The replacement cruiser came before midday. Odo was taken on board and examined immediately, which made her wonder how just high-up he was. Plutt kept sending her sidelong looks, but at this point Rey wanted to stay and see what happened next. 

 

It turned out that what happened next was a thorough auditing of Plutt’s accounts. Rey waited quietly, not willing to interrupt, but also not willing to totally forgo the chance for even more water rations. Odo (cleaned and hydrated after a twenty minute nutrient drip) sat in Plutt’s habitual seat, sometimes making a quiet  _ mmm  _ sound as he marked the figures he found. 

 

By the angle of the light coming through the narrow windows and the grumbling pains in Rey’s stomach she judged it to be late afternoon when Odo finally stood, stretching his narrow frame. “You’ll have the results of the audit within the week,” he told Plutt, who was sitting hunched on a stool in the corner. “Don’t leave the sector.”

 

Odo was in the doorway when he seemed to remember Rey. “Girl- Rey- I assume the HydroPort is here?”

 

Rey nodded eagerly. Plutt looked far less enthused. 

 

“Let’s see to your payment, then,” said Odo simply. 

 

Rey followed at his heels and Odo marched (there really wasn’t any other way to describe his gait) towards the short line queueing by the HydroPort.  Odo walked past those waiting, inserting himself into the front of the line. “How much water can you get on that… vehicle?” he asked Rey. 

 

“Two rations,” she said, trying not to bounce on her toes at the idea of hoarding even  _ more  _ water. 

 

“Two rations, please,” Odo said to the man working the HydroPort today. 

 

“Who’s asking?” the squat man growled down at Odo. 

 

“An officer of the First Order,” sad Odo. He waved casually at his cruiser, which bore the deep red sigil of that group. 

 

“Two rations,” said the squat man. He filled the jugs and passed them to Rey. Odo took one, and together the attached them to her skimmer. 

 

“Thank you for your assistance,” said Odo. He stuck a hand out towards Rey, who shook it tentatively. “You’ve made an ally in the First Order.”

 

He turned and walked towards his ship craft before she could reply. Rey switched off the theft prevention bypasses and the booby trap of her own design. When she went to put the skimmer in gear the engine rolled over once and died. 

 

“Fuck,” she muttered to herself. She hopped off the seat and lifted the dented plastique shell. The solar converter should be fine, she’d fixed that a few weeks ago, but the compressor- or maybe the flight belt-

 

If she hadn’t bent deeper into the engine well her brains would have been scattered over the engine and the sand beneath her. As it was the blow glanced off her neck and onto the bony protrusion of her shoulder. She dropped to the side and turned to see a group of scavengers gathered around her. One of them- Hugh- was holding a heavy length of wood. 

 

“We could live with you when you were a skinny little nothing, another secretive desert rat no better than any of us. We grumbled a bit when you turned out to be better at it than us, but fairs fair. Now, little bitch, you’ve got this skimmer, water rations, the attention of the First Order.”

 

Ratkar was standing off to Rey’s left, practically vibrating with malicious glee. “We aint’ gonna live with that,” he said. “An you know Plutt won’t say nothing about this, you’re dangerous to him now too. You’ll disappear into the sand, poor Rey, the scavenger what didn’t come home.”

 

It was a chilling thought, a reality Rey had never consciously faced. No one would know, no one would look. 

 

“I just got lucky,” Rey said, stalling for time. “I thought he was trying to steal my skimmer, saw him out there, and did the right thing.”

 

“‘S unnatural,” said the third man. 

 

Rey  _ moved.  _ She had to surprise the big man first, she had to get inside the reach of the piece of wood before he could cave her skull in. She headbutted him, it was all she could think to do, and when he doubled over on a  _ whoosh  _ of breath that smelled like decay Rey gripped his head and brought it down firmly onto her knee. He tumbled, and in a fluid move she picked up his length of wood. It was heavy, too wide for her hand, and she could feel it leaving splinters in her palm. 

 

The other two looked weary now, now that their leader had fallen into the sand. “Come on, then,” said Rey, her blood singing in her ears. They rushed her, Ratkar and his friend, and Rey went fluid once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I would just like to say that so far the Reylo fandom is SO welcoming. I've been hanging out with the Game of Thrones folks, and while I LOVE them, you guys are way friendlier. Thank you for that! 
> 
> I'm debating posting another chapter today. I've written up through Chapter Five. The first sexy bit is in Chapter 6; I wasn't lying about it being a slow burn! Don't hate me guys, I think this will be worth it. 
> 
> Next chapter we get Kylo's POV! It's so fun to write him; he is taking over my fic. I know I post at weird times, it's because I don't have internet at home.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo finds Rey.

Kylo Ren’s head ached from his master’s latest intrusion. Snoke had rifled through Kylo’s thoughts as a punishment and a test. Resistance to the First Order was growing, especially in the outer sectors. It seemed that for every little conspiracy, every little pack of rebels Kylo and his Knights of Ren crushed, two more appeared to take their place. He wasn’t any closer to finding the source of these seemingly unrelated incidents, and he wasn’t any closer to finding the ...thing that had so recently been disturbing the Force. 

 

Like gravity, the Force held all living things together in time and space and energy. The Force twined through every living creature, though only a few could feel it, and fewer still were able to use it for their own purposes. Those who could use the Force, who could pull it and twist it for their use- those individuals were like weights in the web that connected them all. Once, long before the fall, those who had felt the Force (magic, they’d called it) had been burned as witches. After the Fall, when society splintered and the technology of that age all failed, the Force rose to power again. 

 

Snoke’s presence on the Force wasn’t something that could be described in words. He was almost an element in himself, a pillar of the  _ otherness  _ that was the Force. Being near him was enough to make even the most Force-blind uneasy. For someone who was sensitive… 

 

Kylo pushed down his nausea, his pain. Pain, used correctly, could be a kind of inverse strength. The stick, after all, could be just as effective a motivator as the carrot. 

 

“You disappoint me, boy,” said Snoke. The booming of his voice filled the cavern in which he ...resided. The presence of his energy passed through Kylo like so many poison tipped darts. 

 

“I will do better, Master,” said Kylo, bowing low before backing out of the room. The weight on his chest eased as he moved away from the icy caverns and into the fort itself. 

 

“Sir-” someone said, but Kylo brushed them off. When the Trooper comes at him again (“Lord Ren!”) Kylo twitched his fingers and pinned the man to the wall with the Force, splaying him like a butterfly ready for the pin. 

 

He stepped into the public chambers shared by his Knights, his most valued and feared warriors. Brushing past a few who were quietly bent over datapads he slammed open the door to his private room with his mind and slammed it shut in the same way. 

 

The first thing to hit his floor was his helmet. His first helm had been given to him in punishment. He’d embraced it, had taken the sting out of the sensory deprivation by making it his own. His belt and shirt and trousers and boots lay scattered across the floor, his left boot half in the bathroom. 

 

Kylo still showered after speaking to Snoke. Sometimes he had to wait for hours before he could wash the wrongness away, sometimes he was kept away for days. Regardless of how long it took, he washed. 

 

His hair was still damp when he went into the conference room. He heard reports on sectors five and eight, worked with his commanders on concepts for new, shielded fighter crafts. He held a disciplinary meeting for one of the officers on base (the sentence was public lashes, a combination of pain and humiliation) and finally faced his last task for the day. 

 

Lieutenant Odo strolled into the room, a datapad under one arm. “Sir,” he said, nodding respectfully. 

 

Kylo waited for Odo to get on with it. His body was tense, his mind caged and chaotic. 

 

“There has been some embezzlement on Jakku, as we expected, but it’s not all coming from the local warlord. I might not have found it if not-”

 

“Stop,” commanded Kylo, patience ending. “Get to the point.”

 

“I wouldn’t have found it, except I saw the girl and she made me think-”

 

Kylo didn’t have the patience for this. Odo was an excellent officer, but he had a habit of assuming that everyone shared his passion for logistics and account balancing. Kylo’s gloved hand extended over the high-polished gloss of the tabletop, his fingers extended towards Odo. 

 

Kylo was practiced in this, in using the Force to rummage through another’s head. He was good enough that he could skim past the day’s annoyances and move onto the interesting part, the bit that had made Odo late- but wait. 

 

There, out of the corner of Odo’s eye (and now, secondhand, his own) Kylo saw the girl Odo had mentioned. She was fighting two men, and another lay crumpled at her feet. In Odo’s memories the Lieutenant had been distracted by his accounts, by his ill treatment from these backwards, forgotten fools. 

 

Kylo, though, he watched the blurry, peripheral vision of the girl. It seemed to be an overall ordinary brawl between small people who lived small lives. 

 

_ There’s more.  _

 

The knowledge twisted though his head, soundless and shapeless. 

 

He rifled back to the beginnings of the fight and watched again. She incapacitates the first one, taking advantage of their surprise, and then ducks under the arms of the second…  _ there.  _

 

One of the men had fallen away from her, had fallen hard, and to anyone else it wouldn’t have been entirely unremarkable. The man was almost as thin as the girl. He could have been tripped or overbalanced or any number of things.  What had happened, though, was that  _ the girl hadn’t touched him.  _ She’d kneed that first brute and had pivoted, graceful as a dancer, and in that spin her fist had thrust out towards the second man. It hadn’t made contact, but the man had fallen away as though pushed by a powerful force. 

 

Kylo pulled roughly out of Odo’s mind, embezzlement and taxes forgotten. Odo sat sweaty and pale in his chair. 

 

“You’ve been useful,” said Kylo, rising from his seat. “I’ll inform your commander.”

 

“Thank you, Lord Ren,” said Odo weakly. 

~~~

“It’s her,” said Kylo, his voice echoing in Snoke’s cavern. “She’s what we’ve been feeling in the Force. She isn’t trained, but she’s strong with it.”

 

Kylo felt the black, suffocating,  _ too tight  _ feeling of having Snoke share his consciousness. It was painful, though by now Kylo was well used to this level of discomfort. Snoke was only peering into the surface levels of Kylo’s emotions and memories and sensations. 

 

“You seem confident, young apprentice,” said Snoke, leaning back into his towering throne. 

 

“What else could it be?” Kylo asked. He could hear the impatience in his own voice so he took a deep breath through his nose before continuing. “At least give me leave to go investigate. A quick glance into her mind will tell me what I need to know.”

 

“Go,” said Snoke. He’d put enough background magic into the word that any Force-user weaker than Kylo would have been sprinting out the door before they were aware of the reason for doing so. 

 

“Thank you, Master,” said Kylo. He bowed low before turning to leave the throne room. 

 

The girl lived near Jakku, that was all Odo had known. It wasn’t much to go by, as all of Sector Three was a desert, just rolling dunes with occasional scraggly water-retaining plants. It would be easy to miss her dwelling in the hills of sand that, at night, merely served to mark the place where the earth met the sky. 

 

Kylo slowed the cruiser when they flew within fifty clicks of Jakku. He let his senses move onto the magical plane where he searched for another with a Force signature. He thought he sensed something to the southeast, and slowly piloted the craft in that direction. 

 

“Scan for lifeforms,” he told Gunji, the youngest of the Knights of Ren. 

 

“Something sixteen clicks east of here,” Gunji replied from his seat at the tech panel. 

 

“Follow it,” said Kylo. He continued to focus on his Force-senses, breathing deeply through his nose and exhaling slowly within his helm, letting his physical self fall away. 

 

“We’re here, sir,” sai Gunji.

 

Kylo stood slowly. “Land the craft,” he said. “I’ll find her from here.”

 

Gunji brought the craft down on top of a dune. Kylo stepped out into the humid, nearly motionless air. 

 

“Stay with the cruiser,” he told the knight, and Kylo walked into the darkness. 

 

He wouldn’t have felt the girl’s Force presence if he hadn’t been looking for it. She was asleep, and so the part of the Force which occupied her was dormant as well. She’d had no training with it; probably she had no idea that this latent ability slumbered, coiled tightly, within her. 

 

Kylo stopped walking when he  _ felt  _ her, felt like he was directly on top of her, but remained unable to see her. He took off his helm, which fell away with a pneumatic hiss of filtered air. It was slightly cooler with the night air on his face, but now he was able to smell the salt and desolation of the land around him. Nothing would grow here again, he knew. No life would flourish in this place. 

 

There- he saw the glint of starlight on… something.  Once he knew where to look Kylo saw that one of the dunes in front of him mostly covered an old train car. The doorway was open, and he assumed the girl lay within. 

 

Kylo crept into the gloom of the little structure. He used tendrils of the Force to keep from bumping into anything, which turned out to be more difficult that it should have been. There was stuff- garbage, in Kylo’s opinion- lined in neat rows to the left of the doorway. There was a darker curl of shadow on the ground to the right of the door. He could hear her breathing now, long and even, and her presence in the Force was a low, heady thrum. 

 

Kylo crept to her side, taking a moment to take in her appearance with the meager light available. He guessed that she would be an average height when she stood, though now she was curled tightly in sleep. An old rag, frayed, yellow, and torn, had been kicked away so that it straggled over one calf. He hair was some medium shade, he guessed. 

 

Kylo bent and extended one gloved hand towards her, fingers outstretched- and then he paused. The hand retreated, the glove was removed, and the long, pale fingers reached again towards the girl’s temple. 

 

Loneliness, a suffocating sea of it, threatened to drag Kylo down into its depth and drown him there, her subconscious a thoughtless, soundless siren song of need. 

 

Kylo ripped his hand away from her skull and tried to quiet his breathing and to slow the panicked tattoo of his heart. As strong as he was with the Force, he’d still almost been consumed by this girl’s need for belonging, for purpose and acceptance.

 

_ He could work with that.  _ With a small smile on his face Kylo pushed the girl into a deep sleep, one from which she wouldn’t wake until he allowed it. Once she was under his thrall Kylo removed the small light from his pocket and played it over the hovel she called a home. There were neat scratch marks over every inch of the walls, thin silvery lines. The tick marks were then neatly boxed… three hundred and sixty five at a time. The implication of those ticks, those boxes dropped Kylo back in that pool of second-hand loneliness and despair. How long had she been alone? 

 

He scooped her up more gently than he might have done, he cradled her to his chest more tightly than was strictly necessary, and he slowly carried her through the still desert air to his carrier. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UMMMM it turns out I lied about the smut in Chapter 6. Like, a lot. I am rolling around in the slow burn, people. I really am sorry. I just keep getting caught up in the little touches between them. I'm such a sucker for those scenes. I don't really go in for romcoms, but those hand squeezing/face cradling/Eponine dying scenes get me EVERY DAMN TIME and I am WALLOWING IN THEM NOW. I promise there will be sex. Eventually. This is going to be a LONG fic. I'm already on Chapter 9. 
> 
> To apologize for my lie I'm going to post two chapters today, the next one at around 6ish EST. Please let me know what you think!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo, meet Rey.   
> Rey, meet Snoke.

Rey woke up slowly. 

 

Something was off, something was wrong, but she couldn’t identify what it was, yet. Maybe she’d fallen again, maybe that’s why she was having such difficulty opening her eyes. She mentally ran over her body from her toes up- no, nothing hurt. In fact, she was rather comfortable. 

 

Finally, with what felt like a herculean effort, Rey heaved her eyes open. She was in a room with black walls, a grey ceiling, and not much else. She was on something soft- a bed? A real one?- and she could sense someone watching her. 

 

“You’re awake,” said a low, tech-inflected voice. 

 

The adrenaline now pumping through Rey was enough to get her into a seated position. She was still in her clothes, so that was one tick in the ‘pros’ column. 

 

There was ...someone watching her, seated in what appeared to be a stainless steel chair. The figure was tall, even seated, dressed all in black, and helmed. 

 

“What’s going on?” Rey demanded. Fear was never an asset. Fear made climbing dangerous, bargaining tenuous, and certainly wouldn’t help… whatever this was. 

 

The figure didn’t answer her. Instead he rose and moved into an adjacent room. Rey could hear water running, and the man (it had to be a man, look how big he was, look at the breadth of those shoulders) handed her a full glass of the clearest water Rey had ever seen. She gulped it down- it was cold!- without even stopping to breathe. 

 

“More?” the man asked, his voice coming through the helm’s voicebox in a mechanical bass. 

 

Rey shook her head. She probably shouldn’t have taken all that water down at once; it was rolling uncomfortably in her stomach. Rey felt a cold sweat break out on her upper lip and the small of her back, and then-

 

Rey sprinted into the adjacent room. She hadn’t known it would be a bathroom, at this point she only wanted to get away from her audience, but thank the  _ gods  _ it  _ was _ a bathroom, a  _ real  _ one, and Rey heaved into the toilet long after there was anything left to come up. 

 

Eventually, when it seemed as though she couldn’t possibly have anything left in her, organs included, Rey sagged to the side. The black wall was cool against her cheek. She  _ felt  _ the man watching her from the doorway. She had always known when someone was watching her, it made her skin prickle. 

 

Kylo looked down at the sad creature huddled against the shower wall. He shouldn’t have given her all that water at once, but how was he to know the little fool would chug it all down without even stopping to breathe? 

 

He refilled the glass (only a quarter full this time) and passed it down to her. She didn’t look at him but took the cup, sipped the water. 

 

“Why am I here?” she asked, her voice small. 

 

Kylo didn’t know how to answer that. There were too many answers, but also...none. He thought he’d let Snoke explain things to her. 

 

“Can you walk?” he asked, answering her question with one of his own. 

 

She pushed herself to her feet, and Kylo watched as the sharp blades of her shoulders strained against her skin and the threadbare fabric covering them. She was shaky, but she was up. Kylo wrapped his hand around her arm (his fingers met, he had a sudden image of holding a bird, those hollow bones) and guided her out of the hall and down halls and halls and halls of nearly identical doors. Uniformity was a byline of the First Order. 

 

Eventually they were out of the fort itself and entering the series of great caverns beneath what had once been called the Black Hills. Kylo had always found that turn of events appropriate. 

 

Kylo was watching his captive carefully, both on the physical plane and with the force. He could feel distress radiating off of her, and when she bent over, hands on her knees, Kylo stopped beside her. 

 

“Can you walk?” he asked again. 

 

Rey’s face was grey. Kylo took pity on her (pity was a weakness, he knew it, had been told by Snoke over and over) and sent a little tendril of the Force to wrap around her. She wouldn’t notice, he assumed. Untrained as she was, she wouldn’t see his help for what it was. 

 

“Can you walk?” he asked one last time, patience snapping. 

 

“Yes,” she said. Rey straightened herself, rolled her shoulders once, and continued on into Snoke’s domain. For one brief second Kylo admired her. She hadn’t run, hadn’t cried, and was facing Snoke under her own power, smothering her fear. 

 

Rey walking into the dark, echoing cavern and that feeling of impending doom and massive pressure on her mind only increased. Every instinct she had was telling her to turn and run, to run  _ far,  _ but she knew there wasn’t a point. The masked monster behind her would only drag her back again. 

 

There was a massive throne at the end of a long, smooth path of polished stone. There was a ...figure, on the throne. Even from a distance Rey could tell that there wasn’t any way to call that figure a man. It’s head was huge the frontal bone far more pronounced than anything she’d seen before. He must have been twelve feet tall, his throne itself was almost twice her height. As she got closer and closer (that sense of pressure and fear and nausea gripping her more and more tightly) Rey was able to make out details of the thing’s face. 

 

“Welcome,” said the thing in a deep voice the faded into hisses in Rey’s ears. 

 

The masked man came to stand beside Rey. “Lord Snoke,” he said, bowing deeply. “I’ve found the Force user we’ve been seeking. She is strong with it, though untrained.”

 

Rey let the words wash into her mind, but she didn’t have the energy to wonder over them. Here, in this moment, she was focusing on breathing, on not puking all over the power seated before her on a throne. 

 

“Let me see,” said Snoke, bending down to Rey. “Come closer, child,” he crooned, his cracked lips twisted into a smile. 

 

When Rey didn’t move she felt something wrap around her and  _ drag  _ her forward, her boots scraping on the stone. 

 

“That’s better,” said the massive man (creature? thing?), his face hovering over her head.

 

What is your name?” Snoke asked, his tone still kind.  

 

“Rey,” she said back, trying not to let her voice waver. 

 

“Welcome, Rey,” said Snoke. “Shall we get to know each other?”

 

He stretched out a hand almost as wide as Rey’s shoulders and touched the center of her forehead. Agony erupted from the one point of contact. It felt as though her head should explode from the pressure, that her bones should crumble away to nothing under the force of the power that was delving into her. 

 

“Yes,” said Snoke, his voice satisfied. “We can work with this. Now, to learn about out newest guest…” his voice trailed off, and Rey’s spine bent back under the pressure Snoke was exerting on her mind. 

 

She was distantly aware of herself on the physical plane. She was bent back, and the man all in black had come up to loosely hold her shoulders. She could feel herself gritting her teeth, her jaw popping under the pressure she’d put on it. That was distant to her, it has about as much effect on her in that moment as the sun did. It was out there, it was important, but it was miles and miles away. 

 

She could feel Snoke flipping through her mind, scanning through dreams and memories. Rey relived them all back to back to back, micro-seconds apart. Laughter and fear and aches and loneliness and joy all amalgamated in  _ pain,  _ pain like she’d never known. 

 

When Snoke pulled out of her mind Rey felt herself collapse back. Her fall was slowed by the masked man’s hands on her shoulders and she ended up slumped on the floor, her back against his knee and her head against his thigh. Under any other circumstance she would have found this mortifying, would probably have rather been dead, but right now she was just thankful that she wasn’t actually flat on the floor. She thought she felt a brush over the crown of her head but- no. She had to have imagined that. 

 

“Interesting,” mused Snoke. “Take her to the med bay, and then return for a discussion, young Kylo.”

 

_ Kylo,  _ Rey thought blearily. The masked man was named Kylo. 

~~~

Kylo crouched down to lift the desert girl that had been leaning on his leg. He’d given into the temptation to touch her, just one small stroke, taking advantage of Snoke’s preoccupation with whatever had been in the girl’s mind. 

 

Once again Kylo was surprised by how light the scavenger was. It was different carrying her while she was awake- well, semi-conscious. He could almost feel the Force shivering within her. Kylo kept thinking  _ she didn’t scream.  _

 

Everybody interrogated by Snoke screamed. Sometimes in anger, mostly in fear and pain, but they all broke eventually.  _ Kylo flashed back to the first time he saw Snoke in person, he’d been fourteen and shivering in regret and fear-  _

 

They reached the med bay doors, and Kylo opened them with a thought, not wanting to juggle the girl and deal with the keypad. He laid the girl on a gurney as healers rushed to her side. 

 

“Run whatever preliminary tests you want,” he said. “Whatever she needs. Get her stable, but don’t give any results or do anything else until I come back.”

 

He left the med bay as Rey (so that was her name) was rolled back into the healing rooms. 

 

Kylo retraced his steps back to Snoke’s lair, for once not dreading this conversation with his master. He hoped Snoke would be generous with the information he’d taken from the girl. 

 

He walked straight backed down the long stone path to Snoke’s seat. “Lord Snoke,” he said, bowing once more. 

 

“Apprentice,” said Snoke, his voice still gleeful. “Finding this creature, our littlest friend, may be your greatest accomplishment.”

 

Kylo briefly thinks of besting the Primary of the First Order when he was sixteen, of wiping out a nest of guerilla fighters with only four men, of lifting a carrier full of men using only his mind. 

 

“Thank you, master,” he said. 

 

“We need her, this young untapped power,” said Snoke. “Our predecessors, they thought that the key to power was to wipe out the light side of the Force, to smother it with the dark.”

 

Kylo had read the histories. He’d seen the records. 

 

“This is where they made their greatest mistake,” Snoke continued. “Light and dark exist as a duality, there is not one without the other. But if we harness the light, if we use it to fuel our agenda… that is the way to power.”

 

“How will we convince her to work for us? She is stronger than she knows,” Kylo asked. He hoped that this project would consume Snoke, that he’d be filled with plans and schemes for the girl. 

 

“She is strong,” said Snoke, his tone gone thoughtful. He sat back deeper in his seat, his massive fingers steepled. “Her mind even managed to give  _ me  _ resistance. Not much, of course, and not for more than a second, but it was there. She will be  _ so strong.”  _

 

Kylo was almost disturbed by the Supreme Leader’s reverent tone. “How, master? What is your plan?”

 

On a bad day Snoke would have punished Kylo for his insolence. Today he was magnanimous. “With kindness,” he said. 

 

That was the last answer, the very last one, that Kylo would have expected. 

 

“She knows pain,” said Snoke. “She’s embraced it as her lot in life, has made it her friend. She is endlessly curious, is endlessly lonely. Use these to bind her to you.”

 

“To me, my lord?” 

 

Kylo’s shock was real. He hadn’t expected this turn of events. Rey was to be Snoke’s project, not his own. 

 

“Yes, to you.”

 

Suddenly Snoke was there, filling Kylo’s consciousness, and Kylo could see Snoke’s vision as it unrolled in front of him. There he was, dark and helmed, and there was Rey next to him, her clothes all First Order black. They were facing a crowd of people, people who were cheering for them. He and Rey were to be the face of the First Order,  a display of power and beauty, a force that wouldn’t be stopped. 

 

The vision faded away and Kylo released his pent in breath. “As you command, master.” 

 

Even out into the hallway Kylo could sense Snoke’s glee.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter as promised! I'm having SO MUCH fun with this story.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo and Rey finally have a conversation.

Rey had found a place in her mind that was  _ just  _ outside the pain she knew she was feeling. She could hear the healers and the scanners but it was like… like her ears were full of sand. The others were there, but far away. 

 

“What’s wrong with her?” 

 

It was a deeper voice, a mechanical one. She recognized that voice. 

 

“Physically there isn’t any reason for her to be catatonic. She’s had a shock, she’ll come out when she’s ready.” 

 

A healer. 

 

Someone (tall and dark) stood by Rey’s head.

 

“She’s doing this,” the mechanical voice said. The hand that had hovered over her face withdrew. 

 

Something nudged her in her mind, just a prod. It was annoying, she tried to shoo it away, whatever it was. 

 

The prod was back, though this time it was more of a poke. 

 

“Stop it,” said Rey out loud. 

 

“How did you do that?” asked the man Snoke called Kylo. 

 

“I don’t know,” said Rey honestly. “I didn’t really think about it.”

 

Kylo didn’t answer. He turned to one of the healers who was hovering nearby in silver robes. “How is she?”

 

The healer came to stand by the tall man in unrelenting black. They looked at the datapad together as the healer rattled off stats. “No vitamin deficiencies, the InstaPaks they send out to the far sectors see to that, but a life of calorie deficiency has led to her body cannibalizing its bones and muscles. Bone density way below average, white blood cell count below average, low immunity. We’ve got more scans, records, but that’s the gist of it.”

 

“Send it to me. I’ll look over them later. When can she be moved?”

 

The healer pursed his lips. “Now, if you must, but for god’s sake feed her.” 

 

Kylo thought he could manage that. “Come,” he said to the girl. 

 

“No.” She crossed her arms. 

 

“Come  _ on,”  _ he said, letting some menace drip onto his words. 

 

“I’m not going anywhere with some asshole in a mask,” she said. 

 

_ Snoke said she was lonely, to tie her to me with it. Bonding with a human-looking face would be easier.  _ Kylo swallowed his temper and released the helm. There was a tiny hiss as it opened, and he tugged it off his head. 

 

Rey’s eyes widened as she took in the face before her. It was far too angular to be called handsome, all severe lines and planes. 

 

Kylo raised an eyebrow at her. Rey hated him already. “Are you coming?”

 

She followed after him. 

 

They wove through more hallways of identical grey doors. “Where are we going?” she asked. She was tempted to remind Kylo that he was supposed to feed her, but decided against it. She’d antagonized him enough for one day. 

 

He didn’t answer her. They got in a lift, went up a couple floors, exited into another hall of doors. Rey wondered if she’d dream of them.

 

“This way,” he said. She followed him a little ways more, and the grey doors opened. It was identical to the room she’d woken up in, for all she knew it was the same room. “You’ll stay here,” he said. “I’ll bring your meals.”

 

He left before she could say anything. 

 

Kylo had put Rey in a small chamber directly beneath his. He couldn’t afford for his Knights to question her purpose, and putting a floor in between them had seemed a good idea. He’d have her accessible to monitor her through the Force, but she wasn’t so close that his intentions would be misconstrued. 

 

He could still feel her confusion and anger pouring off her in acrid clouds. Once he reached his room he had to sit and meditate for ten minutes, trying to clear himself of his own anger’s response. 

 

Once his mind was clear he called up the rest of her medical results and the healer’s suggested treatment. Rey had given her age as “probably twenty two”, and the healer agreed with her guess. Kylo momentarily wondered how someone couldn’t know their own age but quickly moved on. No pregnancies, two fingers that had been broken and incorrectly set, dozens of minor fractures, one dislocated shoulder. She was disease free.

 

A menu and suggested meal schedule had been attached to the back of the email. She was to do an hour of weight bearing exercise a day to regain peak bone density. Kylo contacted the kitchen and placed their order. 

 

~~~

Rey was impatient and terrified by the time Kylo returned to her cell. She’d already explored every inch of it, the floor and walls and bathroom. The walls were seamless, the floor as well, and the one cupboard in the bathroom had been empty. She didn’t know why she was here, she didn’t know what Snoke was or why he wanted her, and she had no idea what to do about Kylo and his endless refusal to answer questions. 

 

When the door opened and Kylo entered carrying two covered trays he paused for a minute, hovering in the doorway before entering the room and letting the door seal behind him. 

 

“Why am I here?” she asked, desperation making her voice high. “Why do you want me?”

 

Kylo set down the trays and removed the mask. He pulled out one of the two chairs, seated himself, and dropped the helm beside his chair. He uncovered both trays (gods, but the food smelled good) and looked pointedly at the chair opposite him. 

 

Rey stomped to the chair and dropped into it without any grace whatsoever. 

 

Kylo neatly cut a piece of chicken, popped it in his mouth, chewed, swallowed. “You’re here because you were born with an affinity for the Force.”

 

Rey’s mouth was watering at the smell of the food he’d brought her. She wanted to be proud, wanted to shove his offering back in his face, but at heart Rey was a pragmatist. She needed the food to live, she needed to be alive to beat this ‘Kylo’, so she ate. 

 

“Oh!” she said, her mouth full chicken. It was tender and juicy and hot. She hadn’t had anything like this before. She devoured the rest of the meat, entirely forgetting where she was and the fact that she had an audience. 

 

When she looked up she saw Kylo watching her, his face expressionless. He had three bigger pieces of meat and he was only halfway through one. 

 

“I didn’t think the Force was real,” she said sheepishly, remembering his comment. “I thought it was just a made up story.”

 

“It’s real,” said Kylo. “Watch.” Without touching it he lifted his bottle of juice above the table and lowered it again without spilling a drop. 

 

Rey was shocked. “What else can you do?” 

 

“The Force can do all manner of things. Some, long ago, could use it to heal people. You can shield you mind, delve into others’. You can fight with it.”

 

“How?” asked Rey again. 

 

Her fork shot out of her hand and hovered menacingly in the air. “Like that,” said Kylo. 

 

“And you think I can do this?” Rey asked, skeptical again. She used her spoon (that seemed safer) to scoop up a bit of the orange mush. It was slightly sweet, she decided. Still, food was food, and she ate it all. 

 

“Yes,” said Kylo. He debated what he should tell her and decided on a version of the truth. “Your mind is unusually shielded, even for a Force user, and when you fought those men yesterday-”

 

_ It was only yesterday!  _ Rey thought with a jolt-

 

“-you pushed him away from you without touching him. That’s how I found you.”

 

Rey didn’t know what to ask first. “You weren’t there, so how did you see it?” 

 

Her bigger question could wait a few minutes. 

 

Kylo’s face remained impassive as he worked his way through his dinner. “I saw it in Odo’s memories.”

 

Rey just gaped at him. Finally, her survival instinct kicked back in. 

 

“What’s in this for you? You’re not just going to teach me all of this out of some- some sense of duty. You want something.”

 

“Everybody wants something,” said Kylo, though he couldn’t  _ quite  _ keep the grumble out of his words. 

 

Rey was familiar with bartering and trading, she was familiar with debts and balances. “So what do you want?” she asked flatly. She pushed away her empty tray before she could degrade herself by giving into the impulse to lick it. 

 

“We want your help,” said Kylo. He hoped she could taste the truth of that short sentence. “We want you to help us bring order to the sectors, uniting us all again. 

 

Rey just squinted at him. 

 

They sat quietly together until Kylo finished his meal. “I’m going to let you keep that knife in your boot,” he said as he gathered the trays. “There isn’t much you could do to anyone with that thing.” 

 

Once again he got the last word and he swept out the doors, helm in place. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said I wasn't going to post over the weekend, but I've had such a good writing flow (21,000 words in less than a week!) that I wanted to share. It's a short chapter, but it's needed to set everything up. 
> 
> Next chapter our lonely space babies go on a field trip! Just as a heads up... Rey ends up being a mushy cuddleupmpkin. It's basically out of my control now. 
> 
> I just wrote their first real sex scene. It's in chapter 12. Don't hate me! 
> 
> Happy New Years everyone! May 2018 be kinder to us all.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo peeks at Rey's dreams.   
> Our star babies go on a field trip.   
> Rey learns to meditate.

The doors should have slammed. If there had been any narrative justice in the world they would have boomed shut, a great echoing noise that would have marked the end of her freedom, of her life as she knew it. 

 

Instead the doors slid shut with a quiet hiss, leaving her in the black room without window and bathed in diffuse light that she couldn’t trace to any one source. 

 

Slowly Rey moved to the edge of the room and pulled her knife from her boot. Slowly, she scarred the smooth obsidian wall. 

 

One. 

 

The mark was gone when she woke. She’d slept on the floor; the bed was too soft, too foreign, too… closed in. When she woke she immediately reached for her knife, relieved to find it where she’d left it above her head. She knew Kylo thought it an inferior weapon, he’d told her as much when he’d left, but that didn’t matter to her. She wasn’t left with only her teeth and nails. She had  _ something.  _

 

After using the utilitarian restroom (running water, so much of it, was still a luxury and fascination to her) she walked the perimeter of the room again. 

 

Her mark was gone, absorbed into the blackness of the wall as though it had never been. Rey wondered if the wall had healed itself or if someone had come in to buff over the tiny incongruity of her displeasure. 

 

Kylo watched her off and on both through the Force and through the tiny camera that was hidden in the ceiling. She stretched, she took another shower and returned to the outer cell in clothes still dripping wet and gone nearly transparent with the moisture. He shut the feed off after that and didn’t check it again until he sought his own bed. 

 

She’d banged on the doors, shouted and raged, and then had gone through her series of stretches again. Before she curled into her usual tight ball on the floor he saw her move to the wall and stubbornly scratch two thin lines into the wall by the bathroom door.

 

Kylo knew he was supposed to be luring her to their side with companionship, but he wanted her to stew just a little bit longer. He wanted her to anticipate his visits, and for that he needed to keep her just slightly off balance. 

 

Once he was sure that Rey was asleep Kylo left his own chambers and rode the lift to Rey’s floor. He opened the doors, using the Force to dampen their hiss, and moved to the wall where Rey had stubbornly left her mark. As he smoothed the marks over he remembered the thousands upon thousands of tick marks inside her rail car and wondered if he should look into obsessive behaviors. 

 

Well… he could research obsessive disorders or he could look at the source. He moved to the place where Rey curled on the floor, wrapped in a blanket. He wasn’t sure why she avoided the bed. She sat on it during the day, but she wouldn’t sleep on it. Was she trying to deny the comforts of the First Order? Was there another explanation?

 

Kylo tugged off his glove with his teeth and ever so lightly brushed his finger over Rey’s skin. She was dreaming, colorful and diaphanous images drifting across her mind. There was an sick woman in a headscarf giving Rey her knife. He was there, clad in black and larger than life. The dream shifted, silvery blue, and they were in her train car while rain flooded the gully outside her door. 

 

Kylo realized her physical body shivered, so he wrapped the force around her, asked it to warm her (this frivolous use of energy could be excused, he had no one to fight here) and then watched, fascinated, as the dream morphed again. 

 

He tried, as subtly as he could, to look for memories of her train car, of the ticks on the wall. 

 

Kylo was successfully able to direct her dream, but it wasn’t what he expected. He was seeing through Rey’s eyes, and they were much closer to the ground than they were now. She was telling the sick woman in the headscarf about Plutt, about her family coming back. She was asking how long it had been, and the woman said  _ twenty three days, sweetness, _ and lightly dug 23 lines into the sand by Rey’s feet. 

 

Kylo pulled out of her dream. He wasn’t sure he wanted to see any more, at least not right now, so he walked back to his room to plot. 

 

He knew she was bored, so he requisitioned a datapad and loaded it with a variety of books and pamphlets. It was locked, of course, she couldn’t access anything other than the files he’d put there for her. He’d also be able to check to see what she’d read. 

 

That night after a trip to the bathroom Rey walked to the wall and scratched in three lines. She curled up on the bed this time, which fascinated Kylo all over again. When he woke and checked on his odd little captive she was once again wrapped in blankets on the floor. 

 

He visited her on the fourth day. If he was to act as her teacher her he couldn’t in good conscience allow her muscles to atrophy. She was sitting on the bed with her datapad when he opened the doors. 

 

Rey looked up at him, squinting slightly into the brighter lights of the hallway. Kylo was holding two trays again, and he had a cloth bag swung over one shoulder. 

 

Rey immediately went to her spot at the table and dat down, eyeing the trays eagerly. Kylo knew she hadn’t been sick since that first incident with the water, but she was still on a diet of what he considered invalid food. 

 

He set the food on the table, removed his helm, and tossed the bag at her. 

 

“Clothes and an extra blanket. You can change after you finish eating, and then we’re going out.”

 

Rey was already halfway through her steamed rice and far overcooked veggies. “Where are we going?” she asked, her mouth full. Kylo was momentarily reminded of the feral cats he’d seen as a child, thin creatures who would slink out long enough to eat but kept an eye out for danger at all times. 

 

“For a walk,” said Kylo, methodically working his way through his own lunch. “This will be your home, and you should know your way around, at least a little.”

 

“So I’ll be able to leave my room?” Rey asked, looking at him skeptically. She knew everything had a price. 

 

“With an escort, yes,” he said. 

 

Ray sat in silence until she’d finished her food. Kylo was still eating, and she wasn’t sure if she should get up and change into the new clothes. She wasn’t sure she  _ wanted  _ the new clothes. How long would it be before she thought of  _ this  _ place as home, until she forgot that she hadn’t wanted to come here in the first place? Wearing a First Order uniform felt… wrong. 

 

“Go change,” said Kylo, pulling out his datapad. 

 

Rey thought about denying him in this, but ...maybe the clothes in the bag would be warmer. She was always cold in here. It couldn’t hurt just to look. 

 

She went into the bathroom and opened the bag of clothes. Inside she found black leggings (so thick!), a grey tunic, and fresh arm wraps all soft and new. It wasn’t a First Order uniform. Somehow this was worse: this was temptation. These clothes had been picked for  _ her,  _ they were there to make her feel comfortable in this place with- with her kidnappers, because that’s what they were. 

 

In the end Rey put on the new clothes. She just wanted to be warm. She finger combed her hair into it’s usual smooth three buns as best she could and then stepped out to see where her jailer was. 

 

He’d cleared the trays and was sitting on her bed, waiting.

 

Kylo had intended to show Rey to the med bay (just in case; he could be a responsible teacher), the dining hall, and the greenery. He showed her the doors to the med bay and he could hear her counting under her breath (four floors down, left, left, right). They walked in companionable silence to the door of the dining hall, but then Kylo paused-

 

He wasn’t sure he wanted to share her with the rest of his knights yet, he wasn’t sure he wanted others to see his fascination with Rey, and so he walked on. They caught a lift and went up six floors and made it into the archives. 

 

He could feel Rey’s joy as she trailed her fingers over the ancient book bindings and the trophies and artifacts the First Order had collected over the years. She wanted to know what everything was, where it had come from, the significance of the thing. Kylo didn’t know half her answers, and he wished he’d paid more attention to his mother- no. 

 

“Come one,” he said. “There’s somewhere else I’d like to show you.”

 

Rey hadn’t wanted to leave the archives. She thought she could get lost in the high ceilinged room with its narrow corridors of books and old, old objects. 

 

The greenery put the archives to shame. They’d taken the lift down eight floors and had woven through several long corridors to get there. She’d felt Kylo glance at her as he opened up the doors, and then -oh, then she hadn’t cared that he’d been staring. There were  _ trees  _ in the greenery, tall, green things with fruit that smelled like summer. Flowers, too, and grass. Fat, flying insects had been buzzing lazily and Rey stood in shock for a moment, her senses trying to take it all in. 

 

“What are those?” she asked, pointing to an orange tree bearing half-ripe fruit. 

 

“Oranges,” said Kylo, amused. “It’s an edible fruit. A thick skin that you peel off.” Now Kylo could see the avarice in her eyes.

 

“What about this one?” she asked, moving away from the door and into the First Order’s experimental greenhouse. 

 

“Apple tree,” he said, distracted. Her shields weren’t up, her shock and joy seemed to have blown them wide open. She was projecting a kind of ...wonder, Kylo finally thought. There was a hint of the divine in there, it was as though he was witnessing her in the grips of some religious experience. 

 

As Rey spent time with her nose about an inch from a bunch of tiny, pale-purple flowers Kylo dipped into the surface of her mind. She was thinking about the first time she saw the ocean, all that water rushing into shore and washing away, rushing in and washing out over and over and over. She was thinking of a flower that had lived for a few brief days after one of the hard winter rains in the desert that had been her home. She wanted to eat all the things that were in here-

 

Kylo had to stop her there. 

 

“Some of the things in here need to be cooked before they’re edible,” he warned her. “You can’t come in here and start trying to eat everything.”

 

Rey glared at him. “Stop reading my mind,” she said. 

 

“Then stop projecting all your thoughts. It’s like you’re on an intercom. Close your mind.”

 

“How?” Rey asked, those hazel eyes keenly focused once more. 

 

Kylo tried not to enjoy how they were focused on  _ him.  _ He was to be her teacher.

 

“Come over here,” he said. They moved into a space between two trees and sat down. After a pause Kylo removed his gloves and mask. 

 

“Close your eyes,” he said. He closed his own, trying to find that cold, balanced place inside of him. “Just breathe for a moment, slowly. Feel your body, where it presses against the floor, your heart beating within. Catalog the physical self.”

 

They were silent for a minute, just listening to the low, faint drone of pollinators going about their work. 

 

“Now move into the mental self,” said Kylo, and even to him his voice sounded… rougher.  “Let yourself feel your emotions, fully feel them, and then dissect them one at a time. Why do you feel anger or fear or, in your case, joy? Pull all of the extra bits off of it until you’re down to the purest form of the emotion. Then put it in a box.”

 

They were quiet for another long, sun-dappled moment. 

 

“It’s… slow,” said Rey. 

 

Kylo looked at her. She looked at home here, here in the light. Here eyes were still closed and her hands were loosely linked in her lap. 

 

“It gets easier and faster,” he said. “Once you’ve practiced enough your emotions will just move through you. You’ll feel them as they go by, but they won’t be as huge, as distracting. You’ll be clear-headed through them.”

 

At least… that was the goal. It worked better at some times than others. Sometimes the emotions were just too huge, too tightly wound to be diffused without an explosion. Kylo knew that firsthand. 

 

He waited for her to finish. It was relaxing in the greenery, and Kylo was momentarily content to look at the plants and his pupil. 

 

When Rey opened her eyes he dipped into her mind. It was still, but now there was a low, steady hum of contentment. He tried to delve deeper, and found that her memories were protected, her shields intact. 

 

“I can feel that,” said Rey, twitching her head as though she had water in her ear. 

 

“Just checking your work,” said Kylo smoothly. “You’ve done well.” He stood and offered her a hand. 

 

After a second, she took it. When they got back into the lift to return Rey to her room she nudged him with her shoulder, just a light bump. “Thank you,” she said. 

 

Kylo just nodded.

 

That night, after he watched her practice her meditation, she scratched four lines on the wall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I seriously need help. This ship is ruining my life. I even made a tumblr just so I could find other Reylo shippers! Look me up, I'm lonelyspacebabies. 
> 
> I didn't write at ALL today. I'm stumped. I'm not sure if I want to up the action factor and have Rey duel Phasma OR if I just want to work through various kinks. Help. Things had been going so well!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emotional revelations.   
> A breakthrough.

Kylo stayed away from Rey on her fifth day in the base. He sent one of his older knights to take her for a walk. The knight reported that she spent all of her leisure time in the greenery poking at  the plants, the soil, the fruit. Apparently she’d given the knight a shock when he turned away for a moment and then turned back to find her already in the top branches of an ancient apple tree. 

 

Meanwhile, Kylo couldn’t figure out Rey’s reading patterns. She’d opened a book on the history of the First Order only to abandon it immediately. She’d methodically worked her way through a book on the history of flight, and had spent copious time studying all of the technical diagrams. On that one she’d even made a few notes, sketching parts and how they’d fit together. 

 

The novels she’d entirely skipped, which he found… odd. He thought she’d go for stories of heroes and battle. 

 

After their trip to the greenery he’d added a few books on gardening. One of those, a book on identifying edible plants and roots, she’d read all the way through, while the one on gardening techniques she’d left entirely untouched. 

 

When he visited her for dinner the next night he raised the question. “What did you read today?” 

 

It was a normal question, a safe one.

 

Rey shrugged.

 

“Are there any topics you’d like to read more about?” he asked, taking another bite of yet another bland dinner. The doctors had warned him against introducing rich food too quickly. 

 

Now he could sense panic rolling off Rey, the smell of it bitter without his helm. She was panicked, but beneath it was… shame?

 

“What’s wrong?” he asked, looking directly at her. 

 

Rey was panicking. She was trying to keep her emotions tamped down like he’d told her, to keep them neatly in their boxes, but it wasn’t working. He was skating around the source of one of her greatest regrets and she didn’t want him to have access to that wound. 

 

After years of survival among other scavengers she knew that being overly defensive never helped one’s case. Instead, Rey took a deep breath through her nose, released it slowly, and asked him a question. “I thought you said my shields were strong. Why can you always tell what I’m thinking?”

 

“Your shields are strong,” said Kylo. He settled back in his chair and Rey got the impression that he was bracing himself for a fight. “I can’t hear your thoughts, I just get blasts of  _ feeling.  _ You’re quite… emotional. I make educated guesses based on those emotions. It’s nice to know that I’m right, though.”

 

Rey felt a wave of smugness,  _ his  _ smugness roll through her and then it was gone; a deliberate demonstration.

 

When she glared at Kylo she saw the corners of his mouth twitch. “It gets easier with practice,” he said. “Why don’t you want to talk about reading?”

 

Rey closed her eyes and breathed slowly. She tried to clear her mind, to feel her emotions one at a time until she could package them up. She imagined that if she boxed up her emotions day by day, over and over and over, eventually she’d have enough boxes to build herself a wall to keep him out for good. 

 

“Better,” said Kylo, his dark eyes still focused on her. “Why don’t you want to talk about reading?” he asked. 

 

Rey glared at him. There was nothing she could do to him, she knew that, and the angrier she became the easier it would be for him to slip into her mind. 

 

“Tell me,” said Kylo. He hadn’t pushed her, yet. Thus far he’d wanted her to acclimate to her surroundings and to having him as a companion. He hadn’t progressed to the conditioning portion of his plan, but now here it was. Compliance would gain reward, disobedience would be met with punishment. 

 

Rey just closed her eyes and continued to take deep breaths. She was shocked by the depths of the anger she was feeling, shocked by how invigorating it was. She was  _ furious,  _ and she breathed it in her fury compressed and twisted into a cold and resolute tool. When she felt the first tendrils of Kylo’s presence in her mind she was able to repel them easily. 

 

The next invasion was stronger, strong enough to cause her pain. With a mental shove she held them off only-

 

She’d missed one, a little probe that had quietly slunk into her memories while she was busy fending off the frontal attack.  _ She was little again, Mai was still alive. The older woman was drawing letters in the sand of her tent. “This is your name,” she was saying. “Rey. R- E -Y. Now you try.” _

 

_ Rey slowly used her finger to write out a wobbly copy of her name, relieved because her name was short. When she looked up Mai was holding a rag to her face, one of the sores there leaking sluggishly.  _

 

_ “It’s okay, little sunshine. I’ll be okay. Can you sing me the alphabet?” _

 

_ Rey’s high voice chanting the alphabet song. _

 

The scene dissolved, a similar one replacing it in a blinding swirl of color. 

 

_ Mai was visibly sicker, her eyes sunken into her skull, her face grey between the sores.  _

 

_ Rey’s worried little voice- “I’ll read to you Mai, that always makes you happy.”  _

 

_ A book in her lap, faded and brittle, the blues almost entirely gone, the reds faded to pink. “The man in the big yellow hat came home with a box. What was in the box? Curious George wanted to know…” _

 

_ Rey’s voice was slow and stumbling. It took her three tried to say “curious,” and that was only with Mai’s help.  _

 

_ “Thank you, baby,” said Mai from her pile of rags. “I need to know- Rey please- do you remember what I told you?” _

 

_ Rey’s little heart started to beat hard. “To hide, always. Never to go with a man because- because-” _

 

_ “Because you’ll end up like me,” said Mai. _

 

The scene dissolved once more, a dizzying kaleidoscope. 

 

_ Rey in her train car, though the train car had far fewer ticks on the wall. There was another sheaf of brittle papers in her lap. “Turn the belt cow- cow- counter cl-ock-wise- counter clockwise.” She put the manual down, picked up some rusted chunks of machinery- _

 

They were back in the present. Rey’s face was red, tears pricked her eyes. “Get out of my head,” she said through gritted teeth. 

 

“Make me,” said Kylo. It should have sounded childish. Instead it sounded like a challenge, a threat. 

 

Rey tugged at that little probe that was still lodge in her mind. She paused, tried to breathe around her shame, her embarrassment, her fury. She honed those feeling into blades and then in a mental lunge she hacked that probe out of her mind. She could  _ feel  _ Kylo’s surprise and she followed it, followed his surprise and the retreat of his presence from her mind, and then- 

 

_ They were looking at a woman with chestnut hair going grey at the temples, her hair wrapped in a heavy braid around the crown of her head. She was looking down at them, Rey and Kylo in one mind, and there was horror in her eyes.  _

 

_ A new setting, a man with a hard chin and black vest, he was saying something: “Tell Luke, kid, I know about as much about this as I do knitting-” _

 

_ A group of children looking at them with fear and tears in their eyes- _

 

_ A crack opening beneath a set of swings- _

 

_ A cat being caught by invisible hands as it slipped out of a tree- _

 

_ A grizzled, bearded face, one that exuded power, that grizzled face etched in fear- _

 

And then they were once more back in back in Rey’s cell, both of them breathing hard and glaring at the other. 

 

“Much better,” said Kylo eventually. 

 

Neither of them moved. They sat across the table from each other feeling the swirl of dark emotions charging the air around them. 

 

He broke their silence first. “It’s a terrible thing,” Kylo said evenly, looking into her whiskey eyes, “to realize that  _ you  _ are the monster.”

 

“But the woman- your mother-”

 

“Lived in fear of me, almost from my very first breath. I never had her check under my bed for monsters.  _ I  _ was the monster that lived in that house, the monster behind her eyelids. I saw fear in my mother’s eyes before I even knew the word to name it.”

 

Rey wanted to deny this, for his sake, for his mother’s, but his words had that iron-tasting hint of truth to them and besides- she’d been in his head, she’d seen those glances, those pauses that lasted a heartbeat too long. 

 

Silence fell again as those dark eddies finally calm. 

 

“I could help you,” he finally said. “Get better. I want to teach you anyway, to use the Force, to fight- you really just need practice and a little bit of help with the reading.”

 

He was so tempted to touch her mind, to see how she took his suggestion, but he resisted. She was probably still sensitive to his probes after their earlier actions. 

 

Her hazel eyes were clear, focused on him with such intensity that Kylo is tempted to squirm. 

 

“Well?” he asked, impatient. 

 

“Fine,” said Rey. “Teach me.”

 

(Before bed that night, just after he leaves she carves six lines in the wall, fully aware that they’ll be gone the next morning.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys DON'T EVEN KNOW. I don't have internet at home, so I drove to the public library, WHICH WAS CLOSED. Then I went to Walmart, but their wifi wasn't strong enough to post. FINALLY I'm here. Someone save me from my exile to Bumfuck, USA. 
> 
> Someone talk to me! Tumblr: lonelyspacebabies


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reading lessons.  
> A visit to Snoke.

After their confrontation and the dips into each other’s memories Kylo and Rey’s days quickly fall into a routine. He trains with the Knights of Ren in the morning while Rey uses some of the weight balls he’s moved into her room. She has videos of the proper workout forms to watch and he know that she exercises diligently because when he comes to her with lunch she’s usually sweaty and shaky. When they finish eating he sets her a Force exercise to practice and leaves for his afternoon meetings. These drag on longer than ever before, in part because Hux now needles him about ‘the girl’ at every opportunity. He then returns with their supper which they eat quietly. 

 

After dinner she reads to him, and this is the part of the day he most looks forward to while simultaneously dreading. 

 

He knew he was supposed to be bonding her to him as well as teaching her and physical proximity was one way to do that. Humans evolved to be a pack animal, each with a role in their family group, each sharing skin privileges with a subsection of their herd. 

 

That’s what he told himself. 

 

They’d started off with her sitting on the floor in her normal spot and reading bits of old stories out loud to him. He hadn’t wanted to insult her with children’s stories so he’d downloaded (against the express bylaws of the First Order) a book of stories from before the Fall.

 

She’d sat there painstakingly reading to him of hobbits and elves and he’d sat stewing in regret, occasionally correcting her pronunciation of a word. He shouldn’t have picked this book. It was one Han Solo had given to him once after a successful supply run. 

 

“What’s this?” Rey asked, pulling Kylo out of his memories. She was pointing to something on the screen. 

 

“What does it sound like?” asked Kylo, leaning forward in his seat. 

 

“I don’t know, the letters are all glued together, that’s why I wanted you to  _ look at it,”  _ said Rey, always a little on edge when she was forced to expose one of her weaknesses to Kylo. 

 

He moved to the edge of the bed to look over her shoulder. “It’s a ...made up word. A pretend language that the author invented.”

 

Rey huffed out a sigh. “That’s so stupid,” she said, taking the datapad back. She settled in to read, leaving Kylo painfully aware of her shoulder and hip braced against the side of his leg. 

 

The next night he started off on the bed. When she needed help he leaned over her, holding his breath to see if she’d complain or scoot away, and that-

 

-that’s how it came to be that Rey spent each night reading to Kylo while sitting loose limbed and cross legged, propped against one of Kylo’s knees, her cheek often pressed to the thick black canvas of his fatigues. 

 

~~~

She told herself it was for convenience's sake, that he could follow along in the story over her shoulder. Rey  _ would not accept,  _ even in the privacy of her own mind, that this was her favorite part of the day, that she got little giddy bubbles in her stomach when she finished her meal and moved with her datapad to the floor. 

 

She liked what she’d pieced together of the story so far. Mostly she was worried about getting to the end of the sentence, the end of the page, but the general ideas had stuck with her. She liked imagining the sassy little hobbits leaving their homes to fight the bad guys. 

 

On day nine Kylo and Rey had just settled down to read when Kylo stiffened. “Snoke wants us,” he said, immediately standing and knocking Rey forward. He put on his helm and Rey stood in the middle of the floor, panic rising again. 

 

“Come one.” His helm was back on (Rey rarely saw it on him now), his voice was cool, and once more he was Kylo Ren, First of the Knights of Ren. 

 

She followed him down to Snoke’s caverns (down seven, one left turn), the pressure on her mind and soul increasing the closer the came. 

 

“Be respectful,” said Kylo in his helm-generated mechanical voice. “He’ll expect that now.”

 

They began the long, terrifying walk down the stone path to Snoke’s seat. Rey could feel the pressure building, building, and struggled to breathe, to let the panic move  _ through  _ her.

 

When they reached the end of the walk Kylo bowed low and Rey mirrored his actions, standing slightly behind him. 

 

“Master,” said Kylo, and Rey jolted. She hadn’t thought of this tall, irritatingly competent man as having a  _ master.  _

 

“Apprentice,” said Snoke, his voice fading with a sibilant echo. “How goes the introduction of our littlest pupil?

 

“Well, my lord,” said Kylo, still unmoving. “Her mind is strong, already she can move objects to and from her.”

 

“Allow me to see, child,” said Snoke, and then Rey was skidding towards those grotesque outstretched fingers, her body shaking as she tried and tried to resist. 

 

When the pain of Snoke’s invasion came Rey tried to breathe through it, to break it apart and put it in boxes (so many boxes, so much pain). 

 

“She resists,” said Snoke. “Such will, such strength.” His voice wasn’t angry, it was admiring. 

 

He pressed a finger to her forehead (she’d been told that physical contact made it easier to dip into another’s mind, this was true) and the pain increased, her mind fighting not to lose control, and then he was in.

 

The pain didn’t lessen, it never did and she suspected it never would. She watched with Snoke as she learned to meditate in the greenery, as she fought with Kylo, as she went into  _ his  _ mind, how she relaxed against his heat as she read, how she’d practiced moving items with the force, making fallen fruit zoom around the trees-

 

Snoke had released her. Rey was briefly aware of his huge, pale face, then he tapped her on the forehead one more time. Unconsciously she collapsed to the floor. 

 

“Such progress you’ve made, Kylo Ren,” said Snoke, once more reclining into his chair. “She sees you as a teacher, an ally. You’ve answered her questions and have made her more curious, you’ve shown her consideration and have made her attached.”

 

Kylo prayed that Snoke wouldn’t rifle through  _ his  _ mind. He suspected he was getting attached to the girl as well. 

 

“Return in three days,” said Snoke. “Bind her, apprentice. She is the key, the key to a united Empire.”

 

“Yes, Master.” Kylo bowed low and shook Rey. Snoke lifted his influence and she woke with a start. 

 

“Come,” said Kylo, roughly dragging her to her feet. “Bow.”

 

She did, complying with his commands, her instincts telling her that that way lay survival. 

 

The walked silently out of the cavern, down the halls, and into the lift. Rey was still clammy and sweaty. She wanted a shower. 

 

The two walked silently back into Rey’s little room. She immediately went into the bathroom, stripped out of her clothes, and stepped into the shower. Kylo sat on the bed and listened to the water drip off her skin, trying not to imagine how she looked covered in little drops of water. 

 

When she came out her hair was dripping and straggly around her shoulders. After a moment’s hesitation she gracefully folded herself up on the floor next to his feet. 

 

“He wants us back in three days,” Kylo said. 

 

Rey shuddered. 

 

He tugged off his gloved and carded his fingers through her wet hair.  _ You’ve shown her consideration  _ Snoke had said. Kylo wasn’t sure what he’d call it. 

 

Sometimes, just before he fell asleep (when he could sense Rey’s mind directly beneath him, soft and colorful in sleep) he felt guilt for what he’d done, what he was doing. He knew it was weakness, but … he liked it too much. He  _ knew  _ he was treating her like a pet, that he was conditioning her to accept him, to care for him, and he also  _ knew  _ he didn’t deserve it. And yet he liked it. 

 

_ Guilt is a weakness,  _ he reminded himself. All decisions that led to an increase of power were justified. It was the first lesson he’d learned from Snoke. 

 

“Why does he want me?” Rey asked, her voice small. 

 

“You know why,” said Kylo, continuing to finger-comb her hair. She hadn’t been with them long enough for it to become soft and glossy, but he saw the potential.  “We’ll be strong enough to unite the Sectors. Because of your background you’re the perfect spokesperson to the people.”

 

“But  _ why  _ does the First Order want to unite the sectors?” 

 

He can feel her exhaustion. She isn’t whining, she’s finally too exhausted to stop ignoring the questions she’d been avoiding. Avoidance took energy. 

 

Kylo thinks of taxes and censuses and armies and grain production and- “Efficiency,” he told her. “Moving resources where they need to go, preventing little local governments from spending years in a stalemate situation with one group voting against the other for dogma’s sake.” 

 

Gently Kylo sent Rey an image of a carrier burning beside a drab brown landscape, twiggy scrub brush straggling here and there. “That carrier was meant for your sector,” he said. “It was full of vitamins and medical supplies. Resistance fighters burned it.”

 

He can feel the Force within her testing the image, tasting its veracity. 

 

“Okay,” she said. 

 

_ It wasn’t an acceptance of her fate, but it was a step towards it _ , thought Kylo. Maybe Snoke was right after all.

 

He left her alone until she was fully asleep with her arm looped loosely around his calf and her cheek on his knee. 

 

Carefully Kylo stroked one finger over her upturned face.  As a youth, when he’d first come to the First Order, he’d been conditioned as all their soldiers were. Unnecessary touch was uncomfortable, a kind of feedback loop meant to prevent unnecessary bonding. It was different with Ray. He wasn’t sure how, but it was… different. Nice. He enjoyed all the tiny little touches she’d allowed. 

 

He lifted her into her bed, replaced his helm, and returned to his own room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp! Kind of a short chapter BUT it sets everything up for the next! In chapter 9 we form the Official Force Bond!
> 
> I'd just like to thank everyone for all the encouragement. You're seriously the best. I'm lonelyspacebabies on tumblr, PLEASE come say hi!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> IN WHICH THE FORCE BOND AWAKENS!

Rey spent the three days leading up to their next meeting with Snoke practicing her Force exercises. She still stretched in the morning, did a few squats and pushups, but then she spent the rest of her hours practicing with her mind. She meditated and cleared her mind over and over. She walked with one of her guards to the archives and lifted a whole table into the air. In the greenery she had fallen fruit moving quickly enough to whistle as it went by. 

 

Mostly she hoped that if her sense of the Force was strong enough it would be capable of blocking Snoke from her innermost thoughts. She hated his ability to peer into her soul, into her thoughts and dreams and fears. It was the worst invasion she could imagine. It left her feeling dirty, angry, and ashamed. 

 

Kylo was trying to pretend that everything was normal. He’d scolded her for not completing her physical routine and he still forced her to read to him in the evenings. That she didn’t mind. She  _ was  _ getting better. It was helpful to have more than instruction manuals to practice with, and it was nice to have him help her with the words she hadn’t seen before. It was also nice to feel close to someone for the first time in… forever. 

 

The morning of their meeting with Snoke Rey was so anxious that she couldn’t eat her breakfast. When Kylo came to get her he looked pointedly at her tray but didn’t say anything. 

 

Rey could feel herself start to sweat in the lift on the way down to the bowels of the fort. She twisted the hem of her tunic in her hands until Kylo’s mechanical voice commanded, “Stop fidgeting. Breathe.”

 

She walked down the long path with her head held high and her stomach in knots. She bowed with Kylo, but still didn’t murmur “Master” to Snoke the way he did. 

 

“Apprentice, little friend,” Snoke greeted them. “How are things progressing?”

 

Once again Rey slid forward as Snoke stretched out his hand. Kylo could see veins standing out on Rey’s face and neck as she struggled to resist the intrusion, the immersion of pain that came with Snoke’s presence. Kylo understood this; it’s an instinct older than the human race. Pain is to be avoided, not welcomed. It took Kylo nearly five years to force himself to consistently open himself up to Snoke’s power.

 

Kylo feels a scrabbling at the back of his mind, the clawing panic of a trapped animal. Distress is rolling off Rey in waves and he realizes that she’s still fighting Snoke, that the Supreme Leader still hasn’t broken her shields. That scrabbling is her struggling for help. 

 

Kylo realizes that if he doesn’t do  _ something  _ Rey is going to end up dead one way or another. She’ll either have an aneurysm and bleed out before Snoke’s throne or Snoke will kill her for her dangerous capacity to resist. 

 

If Rey is dead Kylo’s days will return to the routine established over years and years without her. No soft touches. No experiencing her wonder secondhand. No hope of escape… He’d come back to that later. He had a girl to save. 

 

Kylo shoved the Force at Rey with all of his well-honed strength.  _ It’s me,  _ he thought.  _ Let me in. You KNOW me! _

 

Kylo wrenched at her shields, finally found purchase somewhere inside her (was she helping him?) and once he was inside Kylo threw her shields open for Snoke and pulled away from her mind as fast as he could, hoping and hoping that Snoke hadn’t had time to notice his presence in Rey’s brain. 

 

In front of him Rey’s body went slack, the fight draining out of it. Snoke withdrew from her mind moments later. Once again Rey fell to the ground between them. 

 

Snoke was frowning now, staring down at the crumpled figure at his feet. “She resisted far longer than she should have been able to,” he said. “It nearly broke her to keep me out.”

 

He continued to look at Rey, and then Kylo felt that smothering presence enter his own head. 

 

“Tame her,” said Snoke. “Bring her to heel, or this becomes her fate-”

 

_ Rey, locked in a room, her stomach swollen with a child- _

 

_ A squalling newborn, still tacky with blood and fluids being lifted from Rey’s arm- _

 

_ His saber cutting into Rey, her head rolling from her body- _

 

And he was alone in his skull once more. 

 

“Go,” said Snoke. “Leave me to think.”

~~~

Once again Kylo gathers Rey from the floor.  _ I’ve spent more time carting this woman around _ he thinks,  _ than- than-” _

 

And then Rey is awake, twitching in his arms. 

 

He put her down in the corridor, waiting until she’s got her legs firmly under her before walking to the lift. 

 

Kylo manages to wait until they’re back in her room before questioning her. “What were you thinking, trying to keep Snoke out like that?” he asked. “Do you not realize what you’ve done?”

 

Rey sits shakily on the bed. “I  _ couldn’t  _ let him in. After that initial block I tried to open my shields, but I couldn’t… you helped. You opened them.”

 

“Don’t ask me how,” said Kylo, mask now off. He sat down beside her. 

 

“Well, then I’ll ask you to leave now, please,” she said. “It’s getting annoying, and my head already hurts.”

 

“I am out,” said Kylo uneasily. 

 

A blast of annoyance passed through him. It tasted of Rey, though she’d been more controlled in recent days. 

 

“You’re in my head! It’s a little… spark, or itch, or something,” she said, angry now. “I can feel you. Here!” 

 

Patience gone, Rey  _ shoved  _ at him, hard, and for one dizzying moment Kylo could feel both her effort and his own reaction. 

 

“Hold on, just hold on a second,” he said. “I believe you.”

 

Kylo spent a moment trying to clear his mind. “Close your shields and then tell me if you feel this.”

 

Rey tensed up, and Kylo had to tell her to breathe, to let her emotions slide through her. Eventually she nodded. 

 

Kylo sent a thought to her, one that shouldn’t have penetrated if her shields were fully functional. 

 

“You had a cat?” Rey asked. “I always wanted one.”

 

Kylo ignored her. “Close your eyes. What about this?” 

 

He pinched himself hard on the inside of the leg. Rey jumped. 

 

Fuck. 

 

They spent the rest of the afternoon testing this new hole in their shields. The conclusion: “We need another Force-user, one who isn’t Snoke. Without that we can’t determine whether our minds are open to anyone or just each other. 

 

“Is there another First Order Force user?” Rey asked, nervous. 

 

“No. There are only typically two, it’s kind of a… tradition. I do know another Force user, but I’m not sure if she would help us.”

 

“But we need to find out,” said Rey. 

 

Her face was pale, Kylo noticed. He probably needed to feed her again.  _ Goddammit. Sometimes this really is like having a pet. A beautiful, tempting,  _ **_highly complicated_ ** _ pet.  _

 

Kylo retrieved his datapad from upstairs, jogged back to Rey’s room (he didn’t want one of his knights to overhear this call) and started typing. 

 

“What are you doing?” Rey asked, looking over his shoulder. 

 

Kylo pushed her away. He didn’t want to answer questions now. 

 

Eventually, encryption in place, he made the call. After too much time someone finally answered. 

 

“You!” said the orangish woman on the screen. She was wearing her customary glasses,  the thickest Kylo (or anyone) had ever seen. The looked downright like goggles. 

 

“Me,” Kylo said. Rey was sitting across the room, pouting about having been shoved away. Knowing what she was feeling only made Kylo more impatient. He needed this done. 

 

“Look, Maz, I’ve got a question. The First Order has been ignoring the smugglers and resistance fighters moving through your land out of respect-”

 

“-and because I pay you!” the orange woman interrupted.

 

“But that arrangement could end,” said Kylo. 

 

“What’s the question, Solo?” she asked. 

 

Kylo gritted his teeth and explained the entire situation. If he could trust anyone (and he  _ had to  _ now) it was Maz. Nobody knew how long she’d been around. Her priorities were to 1. herself and 2. her bar and territory. If keeping a secret protected those things, she would keep it, regardless of whether it came from the First Order or the Resistance terrorists. 

 

Maz was quiet for a moment after Kylo finished explaining. “Hold still, kid. I’m going to see if I can feel you.”

 

Another pause. 

 

“You’re on the sixth floor of that hideous fort. East wing. But nope, I can’t get a read on you. How’s this?”

 

Something sharp poked at Kylo’s shields, but they held. On the other side of the room Rey winced. Kylo gestured for her to join him on the bed. 

 

“Maz, this is Rey. Rey, Maz. Can you sense her?” he asked. 

 

“Already did, I was hoping you’d introduce me,” said Maz. 

 

Some thought, or feeling, or  _ something  _ thunked into Rey’s senses. “My shields held,” she said in relief.  

 

“Thanks, Maz,” said Kylo. “I owe you.”

 

“Keep the First Order away from my place this coming Monday and we’re even,” she said. “And tell your-”

 

Kylo ended the call. 

 

“We’re safe,” said Rey. 

 

“Except from each other,” added Kylo. 

 

Rey stood up. “I’m going to shower. I still feel… Snokey.” 

 

This time when Rey showered Kylo could feel her pleasure and low-grade amazement at the abundance of warm water. It humbled him just the tiniest bit. Even before Snoke Kylo had had three meals a day and enough water to keep him clean and happy. Idly he wondered how Rey would look if she’d been given three square meals a day growing up. 

 

To distract himself Kylo ordered their dinner. It came, carried by a charcoal-clad support staffer, just as Rey came out of the bathroom. 

 

Once again Kylo could feel Rey’s happiness at trying a new food. He’d ordered her a dessert as a treat, some kind of bread pudding with whipped cream, and her delight blazed into his mind like a drug. 

 

_ Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.  _ He couldn’t let Snoke carry out his Plan B. Now, with this recent development, that would be unthinkable. Kylo tried to tell himself it was logical- what if it killed him, too?

 

(That night Rey carved twelve lines in the wall before falling asleep on the floor. At some point she moved into the bed, for that’s where she woke.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BOOM. Most of you all have probably figured out which way this is going. You'll probably be right, but I can definitively say that there is sex in chapters 12, 14, 15, and 16. Apparently they (and I) are making up for lost time. 
> 
> Come talk to me on tumblr! I'm lonelyspacebabies. Also- I'm snowed in with my very married and pregnant roommates so literally any conversation you have with me will be a relief. 
> 
> My life is ....not quite hell, but maybe the waiting room for it.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our babies have their first (non sexual) sleepover.

They tried to pretend that everything was the same. Kylo still trained in the mornings while Rey exercised in her rooms. They practiced with the Force over lunch and read together in the evenings. Kylo had to remind himself that she’d been with him for two weeks. In terms of upheaval it felt like  _ years.  _

 

Rey still read to him and he still pretended to read over her shoulder. He could feel the contentment rushing off her when she leaned against him and read of Frodo and Sam. Her contentment made  _ him  _ feel fierce and possessive and confused. He had to make an extra effort to keep those feelings to himself, and it always ended up with him in an emotional mire of his own creation. 

 

That night Kylo’s alarm woke him for his usual trip to Rey’s room to wipe out her tick marks. He’d dreamed of Rey, of finding her in that train car, and he was irritated that he needed to get up to smooth away Rey’s vandalism. 

 

Unknown to him, his pity and irritation had been broadcast loud and clear to Rey, loud enough to wake her, loud enough to offend. 

 

“Stop erasing my marks!” she shouted at him when he crept into her chamber, her fists clenched at her sides. 

 

“No,” said Kylo, tracing his fingers over the fourteen slashes (larger tonight, she was angry)  with his finger, using the Force to close over the gashes. “Embrace the anger, Rey,” he told her, turning to face her again. “Channel your rage. You’re only in here because you allow yourself to be.”

 

He didn’t know why he was goading her. His irritation had quickly grown to anger at her attitude, and he could feel  _ her  _ ire fanning the flames of  _ his  _ emotions and vice versa. He tried to take a deep breath. 

 

“I’m a  _ prisoner _ here because you took me from my home,” Rey hissed, color flushing her face and neck. 

 

Kylo didn’t have anything to say to that. “You could rule worlds,” he told her, his voice strong. “You could topple empires and mountains. You could rip magma from the core, you could drive islands into the sea, and yet you sit in here carving lines into the wall.”

 

“I will carve my marks into the wall,” she said. “I will remind myself why I am here, everyday, from now until I leave this place.”

 

(A blast of pain from Rey’s end of the bond, longing and despair.)

 

“You’ll leave here under your own power,  _ because  _ of your power, or you’ll leave here in a burial jar,” he shot back, his temper rising to meet hers. 

 

(He doesn’t want her to leave, but  _ oh  _ how glorious she is in her anger, how glorious she would be fighting her way out of the keep, a trail of bodies in her wake.)

 

Rey grabbed her knife, lunged to the wall closest to her and violently slashed lines into the smooth surface there. They closed as quickly as she could make them. 

 

She turned back to him, her teeth gritted and her presence in the Force brilliant, the heart of a new-forged star. “I will count my days here,” she said, jaw still clenched. “I will count them on the walls or I will count them on my skin  _ but I will count them, and I will find a way to escape you.” _

 

_ (Pain, such pain rushing up and down both sides of the bond.) _

 

The knife immediately flew into Kylo’s outstretched palm. Rey shrieked her frustration and fury, a blast of power coming off her in a wave that would have moved a weaker man, a man less accustomed to the magic of this world. 

 

“No,” said Kylo, calm once more. He turned and left without another word, her knife in his pocket. 

 

He toyed with the knife as he rewatched their confrontation on a datapad propped against his dinner water glass. The blast was truly impressive, even the bed skidded away. Her strength was growing in fits and bursts, which was good. Kylo could feel a plan forming on the periphery of his mind, but if he strained towards it the idea dissolved like mist. 

 

Kylo skipped over Rey pouting after he left the room and moved on to the live feed. There she was, still cross legged on the floor, her eyes focused somewhere in the distance far past the dark wall she was facing. 

 

After a moment or two she rose, moved a little stiffly into the bathroom, and came back out with a damp face a few moments later. Kylo watched her stretch out next to the bed and he was getting ready to cut off the feed when he noticed what she was getting ready to do. 

 

She had the nail clippers from hygiene kit he’d given her. After unwrapping her left arm she picked up the clippers, flipped out the tiny little file ( _ but it was dull!  _ he thought in rising horror), and proceeded to run it over her bicep, back and forth until a thin red line appeared. She picked a spot next to it and moved on, back and forth, back and forth. 

 

By now Kylo was running through the halls, Force-shoving people into the walls to clear a faster path down to her cell. He blasted the doors open and threw them shut again behind him. There she was, flat on her back, the little nail file rubbing back and forth on mark four. Kylo could feel the little pricks on his own shoulder. 

 

Kylo wasn’t particularly worried about her health. These marks were tiny, something that could be incurred while- while  _ gardening-  _ no. Kylo Ren wasn’t worried about her harming herself, he was furious,  _ irate  _ that she’d bested him. He’d tried to take away her power, had tried to impose his will on her in his first direct order (no marking, no counting the days here, no longing for the desert hovel in which he’d found her) and she’d  _ won.  _ She’d always have this, have this flagrant, bold, and bloody defiance to remember. 

 

Without a conscious thought Kylo picked Rey up and pinned her on the wall, a living crucifix. At least that stopped the glee pouring from her and into their bond. 

 

He wasn’t wearing his helm, wasn’t wearing his gloves, and he was out of patience. 

 

“For this little stunt,” he said, his voice shaking with suppressed rage, “you’re losing your privacy. You’ll stay in my room, wake when I tell you, eat when I tell you, wear what I bring you, and sleep under my watch.”

 

Rey looked at him and Kylo recognized his own rage mirrored back at him. Despite her fear (he could smell it, that acrid haze) she met his gaze, those hazel eyes clear and righteous. 

 

“Fifteen,” she said. 

 

Kylo marched her through the halls and into his chambers. He received even more odd looks this time and his resentment for the girl only grew. He’d brought her here for Snoke, yes. He’d brought her here for her powers. He’d  _ also  _ brought her here to keep Snoke occupied and distracted, he’d brought her here to buy himself some breathing room. She was supposed to be a sacrificial lamb on the altar of Snoke’s ambition, she wasn’t supposed to affect him this way, she wasn’t supposed to occupy his time and space. 

 

She wasn’t supposed to give him all these extra feelings, these worries. 

 

He wasn’t supposed to care about her. 

 

He wasn’t supposed to be offended that he liked having her with him and that she just wanted to leave. 

 

They walked through the halls quietly. Kylo was thankful that the rest of his knights were asleep. He’d get a new room in the morning. 

 

Rey looked around Kylo’s room. It was only slightly larger than hers, and she could see a small closet set into the black wall. The biggest difference was the bed- his was significantly bigger than hers, although considering his size that made sense. 

 

Kylo tugged Rey into the bathroom. He ran the water as hot as it would go, held a washcloth under the flow, and slapped it on Rey’s arm. 

 

“Hey!” she yelped. 

 

“Wash it,” he said. 

 

She did so sullenly. During the Fall (or maybe slightly before?) antibiotics had lost the war with disease. The people then had put antibiotics in food (Rey still found that a ludicrous idea) and had given them out for every ailment. The result was essentially a new plague, a strain of bacteria that couldn’t be stopped. Healers were experimenting with antibodies again, but as of now people still routinely died of infection. 

 

Kylo was on his back in his bed somehow managing to look even bigger than usual even though he was lying down. Rey yanked the pillow out from under his head and lay down on the floor. Kylo dimmed the lights and then… there they were. 

 

Slide by side in the dark, their unwanted bond pulsing with things unsaid. 

 

Rey broke first. “I’m sorry.”. 

 

“For what?”

 

Of course he wouldn’t make this easy. “For fighting. Just… in general. You didn’t ask for this any more than I did. Your pity woke me up and ...I got mad.”

 

Kylo thought he understood that. Waking up to pity wouldn’t have made him pleasant either. “Why do you sleep on the floor?”

 

Rey shrugged before remembering that Kylo couldn’t see her. “It’s what I’ve known. When I first ...came here (how easily she avoided “after you kidnapped me”), the bed reminded me that I wasn’t at home. It was too soft. I sleep on it now, though. These floors are cold and  _ hard.”  _

 

Kylo almost chucked at her offended tone. It was like she thought the floors had been made that way just to spite her. 

 

“There’s space up here you know.”

 

The silence was charged now, the darkness electric. 

 

“I thought I was grounded,” said Rey. 

 

“You are. You’re still under my supervision, but I’m not trying to freeze you to death.”  _ This will also look good to Snoke, he’ll see that I’m disciplining her while trying to achieve our major goal.  _

 

Another pause, and then Kylo was painfully aware of the mattress dipping beside him. Rey huddled under the covers, bringing with her the smell of sunshine and First Order shampoo. 

 

“I’ve never slept with anyone before.”

 

Rey’s confession came out of the darkness in a totally unexpected whisper. Kylo, with medal-worthy restraint, managed to turn it into a joke. 

 

“I have. All of us in the First Order- well the fighters anyway- we have to pass a basic emergency survival course. Up here where the base is we get feet and feet of snow in the winter. We do summer survival testing and winter survival testing. Some poor guy got paired with me- although I was only about fifteen at the time- and we spent a day and a night huddled together in a snow drift.”

 

Kylo can feel her amusement and interest through the bond; he’s satisfied that this was the right thing to do. 

 

“So somewhere out there is a soldier who can say he cuddled with Kylo Ren,” said Rey, and he could hear the laughter in her voice.

 

“Probably,” said Kylo. 

 

“No girls?” asked Rey, her voice small again. Kylo can feel her pent up curiosity and embarrassment over this question. 

 

“Not girls that I would share my bed with, no.”

 

They’re laying on their sides facing each other, the place between their drawn up knees and arms warm. 

 

“What about you?” asked Kylo. Even he is curious now, and after all, she was the one who brought up the topic of bedmates. 

 

Rey sighed sleepily and suddenly, without any warning or pain at all, she’d floated thoughts into his head. 

 

The first was of Mai, her face ravaged by disease.  _ Syphilis,  _ Kylo thinks. The next was of a different woman, one new to the Sector, being dragged off behind the bar by four dirty men, all the while shrieking in fear. 

 

The next image was of two scavengers attempting to follow Rey back to her home. 

 

_ Did any of them ever…?  _ The thought trails off, he can’t finish it. If they had he would see Sector Three sunk into the sea and every male who lived there drowned. It still might not be payment enough.

 

_...no…  _ Rey thinks, and then she was gone, lulled to sleep by the exhaustion of her day and the warmth radiating off Kylo’s body. 

 

He touched her hip lightly, partly to see what she’d do, partly to see her dreams. 

 

Physically she didn’t do anything, she didn’t jump or squirm away. On the mental plane she was happy and content, she was-

 

Kylo fell asleep thinking of how Rey’s dreams of contentment and pleasure involved her sleeping against him, her body cradled in his. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. This chapter was actually the second thing I wrote in the whole story. I wrote the whole desert scene from Rey's POV in one sitting, and then I came back and wrote this argument between them. 
> 
> Writing-wise this story is winding down. I think it's going to be about 22 chapters total and there will, of course, be a happy ending. I'm honestly not happy with the ending I've got so far, but we'll see. I need to start brainstorming new ideas! 
> 
> Anyway, thank you ALL for sticking with me this far! I really appreciate it. I may or may not post new chapters over the weekend; it depends on whether or not I can get to a Place With Internet. Love you guys!


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo and Rey make a plan!

It was supposed to be a punishment for  _ Rey,  _ but having her in his space was turning out to be more of a punishment for  _ Kylo _ . 

 

She wasn’t hard to live with. She was just distracting. He’d nearly had his ass handed to him in morning training with his knights, and when he’d come back it was to hear Rey humming to herself in his bathroom and it had made him  _ happy.  _

 

A month ago he would have found this state of affairs revolting. 

 

The plan, the idea that had been eluding him solidified as he sat down to go over Force techniques with her after lunch. 

 

“Rey, you’ve got shielding abilities unlike anyone I’ve ever known. I think, if we use that skill just right, we could ...get away from this.” He blurted it out all at once, the idea too huge and terrifying to keep to himself.

 

Kylo had expected Rey to jump on this opportunity, to enthusiastically support his idea. 

 

“Why are you all of a sudden so eager to leave?” she asked, squinty eyed. 

 

Kylo hated that look. It made his life complicated. “This is what Snoke’s plan is for you if I don’t get you in line,” he said, and he sent the images to her. 

 

She blanched, went more pale than Kylo had ever seen her, and she gripped the edge of the table for support. 

 

“But what about  _ you.  _ Why do  _ you  _ care about this, why do  _ you  _ suddenly want to leave.”

 

It makes Kylo angry that she’s asking these questions. It makes him even angrier that he has no good answers. 

 

“We don’t understand the bond,” he said. “What if we’re linked, now? What if your death means my death, or what if your death means that I lose my connection to the Force?”

 

“So… for selfish reasons,” Rey said, her face still scrunched. 

 

“For practical reasons,” Kylo said, his anger rising. Once again he had that strange feeling of  _ re _ feeling his own anger, and that forced him to calm himself. “And besides- there wasn’t any point in hoping to leave before. Now that there’s hope…” he shrugged. 

 

“Fine. What’s your plan?” asked Rey. 

 

“You were able to keep Snoke out,” said Kylo. 

 

Rey interrupted. “It almost killed me!”

 

“Yes, but if we do this  _ right  _ it won’t.”

 

Rey was glaring at him again. “This sounds just great so far,” she said. 

 

Kylo shoved that image of her childless, broken body back at her. She flinched. 

 

“Look… we work with your shields. You practice opening them, letting Snoke in to look around, but we make you a vault of sorts, one so deeply shielded and hidden in your psyche that Snoke won’t find it.”

 

“That… actually makes sense. What do we put in the vault?”

 

“Our escape plan. If you’re distracting Snoke with something, I can try to kill him.”

 

That sentence hung in the air like an invisible noose. 

 

“Can you do that?” asked Rey, her voice tentative.

 

“I think I can. My powers have been growing, just coiling inside of me and waiting to be used. I can’t test them here, anything too big and Snoke would feel it, but… yes. I think so.”

 

“We need to find out,” said Rey. “We need to find out if  _ any  _ of this is possible.”

 

Practice began immediately.  Their initial practice was stunted by the fact that, because of their bond, Rey’s shields recognized Kylo and opened for him automatically. Rey had to learn to close them successfully before she could practice opening them.

 

Across the bond that opening and closing sensation was odd. One moment he heard the echoes of her fatigue, then he was alone in his mind once more. Before he could get used to the quiet the bond was open and he could, distantly, feel as Rey felt. 

 

“Enough,” Kylo finally said. “We can’t burn out on the first day.” 

 

Even he was tired. Kylo realized this as he sat blearily watching Rey’s dampened enthusiasm for dinner. He wanted a shower (he wasn’t sure why, their afternoon had been dedicated to mental exercises only) and he wanted to go to bed. 

 

Kylo rose from the table. “I’m going to wash, then we can read and go to bed. I had your things brought up,” he said, gesturing to the closet as he stepped into the bathroom. 

 

Her things consisted of two changes of clothes and her datapad. They didn’t even take up a whole shelf of the narrow cabinet. 

 

Rey had to close her shields one more time when she heard the shower click on. She was getting far to comfortable with Kylo-  _ he’s your jailer!  _ she reminded herself- and imaging him warm and relaxed in all that water wasn’t helping. Instead she grabbed her datapad and one of Kylo’s long shirts (he had six!). She hadn’t liked sleeping in all her clothes, it only added to her feelings of griminess in the morning. 

 

That thought made her grin. How quickly she’d gotten used to clean clothes and daily showers with real water! Not long ago she’d ‘bathed’ by rubbing her skin all over with fine white sand. It had always gotten off the engine grease, and it usually took a fair bit of sweat with it. Sometimes she’d even combed it through her hair. 

 

“You smell better now, though,” said Kylo. She turned to him, prepared to make some scathing comment, and turned away even more quickly. He was in some loose black pants that hung low on his hips, and  _ those were all he was wearing.  _ Rey honestly hadn’t known that it was possible for humans to look like that. 

 

Shut the bond, shut the bond, shut the bond.

 

Kylo could feel her arousal and embarrassed panic rolling into him and he  _ almost  _ laughed. He disappeared back into the bathroom to shave and to give her a chance to compose herself. 

 

When he came back out she was seated on the bed with her datapad, the blanket drawn up over her knees. 

 

“Are we reading?” she asked. Their bond was tinged with hope. 

 

“Sure,” said Kylo. He got into bed shirtless as much to fluster her as out of comfort. 

 

He had the bed pushed up against the wall to maximize floor space. This meant he had to either scoot Rey in between him and the wall or climb over her…

 

Kylo sat on the edge of the bed, picked Rey up, slid himself into the middle, and dropped her onto his lap in one fell swoop. 

 

She stiffened, surprise and confusion swamping her. 

 

Kylo decided to play this off as though nothing unusual had happened. “We just met Tom Bombadil, right?”

 

Kylo could feel Rey’s mind whirring, debating her options. He stroked a hand up and down her back, noting all those sharp little vertebra, and she softened and found her place on the page. “...He knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless — before the Dark Lord came from Outside…”

 

Rey read on, and as she did she relaxed more and more into Kylo. By the time the chapter was done her cheek was pressed to she skin beneath where his shoulder curved into his neck and their bond was quiet and content. 

 

“Is this okay?” she asked him eventually.

 

“Yes,” said Kylo. “We make our own fates, Rey.”

 

She paused one more time. “I should have gotten grounded days ago,” she said, her voice thick with sleep.  

 

Kylo sat braced against the headboard with Rey in his arms long after she’d fallen asleep. He worried about their plan, about her ability to block Snoke and his own ability to kill his master. 

 

He couldn’t give her up now, though. She had been found by him; both Snoke and the universe had given her to him. Rey was  _ his  _ now, and Kylo protected the things that he’d claimed. 

 

Eventually, when he felt himself beginning to drift off, he tilted them to the side and covered them with a blanket. Almost as easily they slipped into dreams. 

 

_ Kylo was coming out of the bathroom again, his chest damp and bare. The light was more diffuse here, not as dark or focused. Instead of returning into the bathroom Kylo crossed the room and stood so close to Rey that she could feel his breath feathering over her nose.  _

 

_ “So you like looking at me, little one? You’d likely be the first.” _

 

_ Dream Rey held still as Kylo circled around her silent form. Slowly he stretched out a hand and trailed his fingers down the side of her neck (feel her pulse pound!), over her clavicle and down to gently cup a breast.  _

 

_ “Is this real?” Rey whispered.  _

 

_ ( _ A surge of pride down the bond, she was asking the right questions.)

 

_ Kylo smiled, his grin that of a predator just before the kill. “Does it matter?” _

 

_ Rey shook her head and took one tiny step closer to Kylo, allowing her thighs and belly and breasts to rest against his body. “No. No, it doesn’t matter.” _

 

A sharp prod against the fantasy and it was gone. Kylo woke to find Rey pressed tightly to his back, her little fingers spread over his skin. He also knew that Snoke wanted to see him, wanted to see him  _ now _ . 

 

“Snoke wants to see me,” said Kylo, rolling out of bed and shoving his clothes on with seemingly no modesty. 

 

“Will he…?” Rey asks. They both know what is at risk, they both know that words once said couldn’t be taken back, especially not in memory. 

 

“I don’t know,” said Kylo, his voice grim. 

 

“Let me come with you,” said Rey, who rose as well. 

 

Even now, when Kylo was likely walking to his death, his cock gave a little twitch at seeing Rey gowned in his shirt. 

 

“No. He asked for me.”

 

“But I have an idea, I was going to tell you tomorrow. It’s important.”

 

Rey was in her trousers now, and in a split-second decision Kylo tossed her his winter coat. It would hide her shirt-dress situation. He may as well be hanged for a wolf as a sheep.

 

Rey had to jog behind Kylo to the lift. He really was the tallest fucking person she’d ever seen. 

 

“Listen- today we realized that my shields recognize you as an extension of myself, more or less. I had to actively close my mind against you. If you’re an ...extension of myself, I think I could shield  _ you,  _ at least for a minute or two.” Rey really wished she could see Kylo’s eyes through the helm. 

 

“Try it now,” he said as the lift doors opened. 

 

Rey  _ threw _ her shields at Kylo, proverbially shoving a shape through a tube that was just slightly too small for it. 

 

Kylo staggered but then slowly rose. 

 

“I can feel it,” he said. “I think it’ll work.”

 

Rey let the shield drop, she was already starting to sweat. “I don’t think I could keep it up for more than a minute.”

 

“At my signal then,” said Kylo. “I’ll make it count. Stay here.”

 

He turned and was gone in a towering swirl of black. 

 

Rey sat down just outside the lift doors. No one should come down here, not tonight. She felt the cold of the stone through her trousers, she felt the warmth of Kylo’s coat around her. The sleeves were far too long, and it smelled of smoke and sweat, but it was  _ his,  _ and it was warm. She played with the seam around the cuff and willed herself to relax, willed the bond to open. 

 

She couldn’t quite see through Kylo’s eyes, but she was wide open to his feelings. Trepidation, distaste, fear, and a hint of… hope. Hope, smelling of lilac. 

 

Kylo didn’t think this was going to work. He expected that this would be the night he died, he and Rey, and there was a part of him that almost welcomed that, and yet… maybe they’d live. Maybe she was right. 

 

“Master,” he said, bowing before Snoke’s throne.

 

“Apprentice,” said Snoke, his voice fading away in its usual hisses. “I am so sorry to pull you from your bed.”

 

Kylo knew not to say anything; he merely inclined his masked head. 

 

“I find myself so  _ interested  _ in our littlest friend and compatriot,” said Snoke. “How is she faring? Have you brought her to heel?”

 

“Allow me to show you, Supreme Leader,” said Kylo, standing strong.   _ You have nothing to hide,  _ he told himself.  _ Nothing to hide here. _

 

He opened his shields (even though that really wasn’t the right metaphor, it probably wasn’t even the right image, but Rey’s terminology had stuck) and felt Snoke’s familiar pressure in the upper levels of Kylo’s mind. Together they looked at Rey’s temper tantrum, at Kylo holding her pinned to the wall, at her asleep in his bed, at her pressed tightly against his skin.

 

“A little longer, my lord, and I think she will do as I please,” said Kylo. He hoped that little walk through his memories would satisfy Snoke. 

 

They didn’t. 

 

Snoke’s presence was back, and pain became the beginning and end of Kylo’s world. He only hoped (without any actual thought) that Rey could feel it. 

 

Rey had felt, distantly, the pain of Snoke’s first foray into Kylo’s mind. Moments later (seconds really) the pain was back, and even second hand it was enough to make Rey’s limbs shiver and twitch. 

 

_ This must be it  _ she thought to herself. Once more she flung out her shields, coating them in the Force and asking for all memories of their talk and practice be hidden. 

 

She felt the shields slip into place and then oh  _ gods  _ she was in an endless loop of rushing, pounding pain. Snoke’s pressure was on her shields themselves but he was also in Kylo’s mind and in their bond the pain multiplied in Rey over and over until she had no more words, until she was drowning in it, until she had no more self to feel it. 

 

Both Snoke and Rey drew out of Kylo’s mind at almost the exact same time.  In the immediate absence his skull felt almost empty. 

 

Snoke looked at Kylo for a moment, those bulbous eyes serious and searching.  “I am proud of you, child. You haven’t turned from your path and you’ve been clever in your approach with the girl. I know your secrets, Kylo Ren, and you and I have talked at length about your shame.”

 

“Anything that results in an increase of power is justified and nothing to cause shame,” Kylo recited. He couldn’t feel Rey in their bond. It was there, but dark and hollow. 

 

“So your lust for the girl, your human need to mate- this is nothing to fear, to turn from,” Snoke continued. “It will bind her to you all the more. See to it, apprentice. She could be your greatest work.”

 

“I will, Master,” said Kylo. He turned and walked away, making it a point to keep his steps deliberate and even. 

 

Once he was out of the cavern and around the corner he ran to where Rey sat propped loosely against the wall. 

 

“Rey,” Kylo said, shaking her. “Rey!”

 

His next move was to shove as much energy as he could gather down their bond. It rocketed into her like fireworks. 

 

“Kylo!” she said, jumping. 

“It worked, come on.”  

 

Kylo dragged Rey to her feet and tugged her into the lift with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THEY FINALLY HAVE SEX NEXT CHAPTER. THIS HAS BEEN THE SLOWEST OF SLOW BURNS. 
> 
> I also have officially finished writing this fic. It's a bit over 41,000 words long and 19 chapters. I'm trying to come up with a new idea now. 
> 
> My heat is out at home. It's 50 degrees F in my house. Save me.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SMUT SMUT SMUT

“It worked,” she whispered in the steel enclosed lift. “It worked,” she whispered again as she slowly walked into his (their) room. 

 

“Yes,” said Kylo, ripping off his helm and tossing it to the floor. “It worked.”

 

He dragged Rey up against him, one arm tight around her waist, and he kissed her with all the pent up lust and frustration and hope that was singing through his veins. 

 

Rey was startled at first and then she sank both hands into the dark curls she’d been  _ dying  _ to touch and kissed him back. His lips were soft, surprisingly so, though this kiss wasn’t soft at all. He bit her lip and then when she gasped into his mouth his tongue tasted her teeth, her tongue. 

 

She was disappointed when Kylo pulled from her abruptly. “Your first kiss?” he asked incredulously. 

 

“The first one I actually wanted,” Rey shot back, annoyed at his judgement.

 

“No judgement here, princess,” he said, spinning so he could press her against the wall. “You’re  _ mine.” _

 

Rey’s legs opened instinctively to wrap around Kylo’s hard waist. He growled his approval into the skin beneath her ear. 

 

“ _ Mine _ ,” he said again, sending her an image:

 

_ Her head thrashing back and forth on the pillow, her breath coming in pants- _

_ Her lips wrapped around his cock as she looked up into his eyes- _

 

_ His head between her legs, her fist tight on those black curls- _

 

_ Her, curled naked in  his lap, him still fully dressed- _

 

_ His face, dark eyes soft as he looked down at her- _

 

Rey pulled away from the images. “Not while I’m not all Snokey,” she said. Her voice sounded high and breathless. 

 

Kylo thought about it. He’d like to be clean of Snoke’s stain (at least as much as he could be) too. 

 

“Do you want to shower first?” she asked. 

 

“Together,” he said. 

 

She blushed. He set her back on her feet, gave her a gentle kiss. “I think you’d like it. Me, warm water…”

 

He let that suggestion hang in the air between them. 

 

“Okay,” she said finally. 

 

She did love the shower. Kylo stripped his clothes off with a practiced efficiency that made Rey more at ease too. It wasn’t that she was particularly modest (poverty and the desert sun had made her appearance a very low priority) but she  _ was  _ worried that she wasn’t up to scratch. 

 

Rey hadn’t seen many people in the desert. She’d avoided Jakku, especially when the trade caravans came. She knew that those who were sent to Jakku weren’t the cream of the crop (desert rats, criminals, grubby scavengers), but she wasn’t sure where she fell on the scale of normal people.

 

Rey sucked in a breath when Kylo kicked off his pants and she saw him naked. 

 

If he was a normal looking person, she had to be the ugliest girl he’d ever wanted to bed. 

 

In an instant she found herself pressed to the wall once more. “You’re mine,” he said, his face inches from her own. “And you’re beautiful. Don’t disparage what is mine.”

 

Rey was breathless from that little speech when she stepped under the spray. It was crowded in the shower stall (Rey really thought that Kylo was continually getting bigger and bigger; she could feel the pleasure rolling off him when he read that thought). She enjoyed the way that their skin slid against each other, soft and slick. She couldn’t help but run her palms down Kylo’s arms, his broad chest, his abdomen that was ribbed in muscle. 

 

“I like this,” she said, turning gently. 

 

“The shower?” asked Kylo, his voice teasing. 

 

“That too,” said Rey. 

 

When they stepped out of the water he dried her off with brisk, almost rough efficiency. As he toweled himself off he thought that she looked like a cat that had been caught in the rain- fluffy, disgruntled, and thankful to finally be warm. 

 

Kylo dropped the towel and took one step forward. “Tell me no, Rey. Tell me to put on my fucking pants and leave you alone, because I don’t think I’ll be able to let you go after this.”

 

He was looking down at her now, watching her clear whiskey and pine eyes widen. 

 

“I- I don’t want to tell you no,” she said breathlessly. She was flushed from the shower, but Kylo could see a blush spreading over her cheeks and down her neck. 

 

“Then say yes,” he said, closing the distance between them. He ran one hand down to the sharp jut of her hip and nibbled his way along her jaw.

 

“Yes,” said Rey on a puff of pent up air. “ _ Yes.” _

 

“I don’t know what I’m doing!” she said all in a rush as Kylo picked her up and strode with her out of the bathroom to the bed.

 

“That’s okay,” he said, dropping her onto the mattress and crawling over her. “I do.”

 

Kylo slowly kissed her, content to take things slow now that he had her consent and was secure in the knowledge that pleasure was imminent. Her little hands were running over his shoulders and back, though they consistently returned to his hair. He’d probably never cut it short again. 

 

When Kylo bent to lick a nipple and suck the tawny nub into his mouth Rey jumped, went even wetter, and yanked on Kylo’s hair. 

 

“Again,” she said, and Kylo complied. All the while he was worshipping her breasts he was running a hand down her arm, over sternum and across her belly, down her hip and back again. There, inside her head, he could feel the soothing repetitiveness of the strokes with his hand and the wet, hot hunger elicited by his mouth. 

 

“I wonder what you taste like little Rey. Are you bitter? Are you sweet?” he asked, peppering kisses over her collarbone and shoulders. 

 

_??? _

 

_ An image of his thumbs parting her  _ there,  _ his head cocked to the side and wedged at the apex of her thighs.  _

 

Rey went hot again, wiggling in anticipation and self-conscious nerves.  

 

Kylo rolled to the side and tugged her against him. The hand that had been stroking her ran down her stomach and diverted from its course- instead of gliding to the outcrop of her hip he ruffled the hair over her mons, letting his fingers travel in slow swirls. 

 

“Have you made yourself come?” he asked. “Did you ever lay out under the stars and stroke yourself, your fingers in your hot little cunny?”

 

Ray blushed and looked away. Kylo grabbed her chin and turned her face back to him and then his fingers went back to their teasing. Rey shivered and Kylo reached into the bond- she liked that. Oh, his sweet little desert cat… just think of all the things he planned on doing to her now. 

 

“Did you?” he asked again.

 

“Once or twice,” she said. He dipped a finger into her slit, reveling in the moisture that was already there. She jumped. 

 

“Did you come?” he asked. (This is what the snake probably felt like in Eden.)

 

“I don’t think so,” she said, her eyes still locked on his as he wanted.

 

He bent to her mouth, kissing her deeply as his fingers began to circle over her little clit, giving her a reward for her answers. 

 

“You’d know if you had,” he said. 

 

Second-hand Kylo feels arousal and tension building in Rey’s stomach. He stops playing with her and instead grabs her wrist and tugs her palm to his aching cock. “Like this,” he said, showing her the pressure and rhythm he liked. 

 

He goes back to his slow circles- she’s wetter now, but distracted by doing a job for him. How sweet his little sand princess is. 

 

_ One day we’ll try this,  _ he thinks, and tosses her an image like he would a paper plane. 

 

_ Rey is sprawled on Kylo, belly down. His cock is in her mouth, and her head is bobbing frantically. Wet noises fill the room, and Kylo rumbled a hum into her pussy- _

 

Rey squeaks and this time Kylo’s fingers come away sticky and wet. He puts the fingers in his mouth, much to Rey’s shock. Her hand stops moving on his cock and her jaw drops. 

 

Kylo kissed her, chuckling into her beautiful mouth, before sliding down her body and finally inspecting that most soft and tempting of places. 

 

Rey is small here too, but pink and perfect. Kylo really  _ does  _ think that hers is the prettiest pussy he’d ever seen. Rey jumped when he pressed a kiss to her thigh, so Kylo relaxed in place. He worked a finger into her (so tight  _ gods  _ so tight) and slowly finger fucked her while pressing wet, open mouthed kisses to her thighs and hips and lips. He doesn’t want her surprised or uncomfortable with any of this because he wants to do this to her again  _ soon.  _

 

Eventually Kylo hears her sigh out an  _ mmm,  _ and her body relaxed around his fingers. He leaves them in her, still curled and wiggling, and pressed his mouth over her clit. At the first lick she jumped so much that he had stop what he was doing to toss her legs over her shoulders. Kylo used the hand that wasn’t inside her to press down on the concave space between her hips. “Stay,” he growled, and then he returned to his task. 

 

Until then Rey hadn’t understood the big deal people made about mating. It looked painful and messy, not pleasant at all, and it resulted in babies and diseases and death for the women. 

 

_ This,  _ though, this was different. This was a taste of the sublime. 

 

At some point Kylo set up a rhythm of finger curls and licks and sucks that had her hips rocking against his face. When he growled his approval into the delicate tissues of her cunt she gasped and could have swum in the smug river of glee that was pouring from Kylo. 

 

When her stomach muscles started to twitch Rey was vaguely aware of the fact that she was making the most mortifying little noises of  _ need _ : mewls and gasps and lewd moans that don’t even sound like her. She is so lost in the bliss that is Kylo’s mouth that she doesn’t begin to care. 

 

And then he stopped. 

 

And after he stopped he flipped over, used her thigh as a pillow, and began to stroke his cock, which looked… painful. The end of it was almost purple, and Rey could see a vein wrapping around it, which was standing out in stark relief. 

 

“Um. Is that it?” she asked, clenching her fists in the blanket beneath her. 

 

“Would you like more?” he asked, turning his head to look up at her innocently. His chin and mouth are wet, her arousal shining in the dim light. She looks away again- this is obscene, this isn’t normal or-

 

His hand is on her chin again, forcing her to look up at his wet face and burning eyes. “Nothing about this could be wrong,” he said. “In this bed, in this room with me  _ there is nothing else.  _ No right or wrong or judgement, even from ourselves.  _ Just us,  _ just what feels good and makes us happy. Do you understand?”

 

Rey nods, and those wonderful fingers are back at her clit, circling, circling. 

 

“Out loud,” he said lowly. “I want to hear it.”

 

“Just us,” Rey whispers. “No right or wrong. No judgement or shame.”

 

Kylo kissed her hard and she can taste herself- sticky and salty and almost sweet?- on his mouth. 

 

“Did it feel good?” he asked. He was wearing his wolf grin again, and Rey knew that she was playing way out of her league. 

 

“Yes,” she whispered. 

 

_ Can I have some more?  _ She asked across their bond. She sent him a memory of how he’d just looked from her perspective- all dark curls and shoulders broad enough to block out the sun and smooth pale skin. 

 

What can Kylo do in the face of her pleasure and the happiness he feels in her mind?

 

“Out loud,” he said, and as she whispered  _ please, will you do it again  _ he’s already retreating down her body and opening her cunny for his tongue. 

 

When Rey almost came again he stops for a second time. She huffs out a  _ hey,  _ not yet realizing what she’s missing but aware that her destination had been close ahead.  

 

After wiping his face on the blanket Kylo crawls up her body, paying homage to her little breasts along the way. 

 

“When you come for the first time, I  _ will  _ be inside you,” he said. “I want to hear you scream my name.”

 

Rey blushed furiously- she liked his filthy mouth.

 

Slowly and deliberately Kylo takes his prick and sops it up and down her cunt. He lets himself nudge against her clit over and over, and he enjoys how Rey twitches at the feeling. She’d already noticed that his cock is hotter than his fingers. 

 

Slowly he started to work his way into her body. Nobody believed in hymens anymore (thank  _ god,  _ how had people been so stupid as to believe that myth for thousands of years?) but he knows that she isn’t used to this feeling and will likely be tight. 

 

She was. She was mind-stoppingly, ball-emptyingly tight. 

 

“Does this feel good, little one?”  _ What do you need? _

“Will you touch… there, again?”

 

“I want to see you do it. I want to see you touch your clit. Look how swollen it is, all lonely and hot.” Kylo tugged her hand down to her cunny. “Do you feel that? It’s your clitoris, it’s what makes you feel good.”

 

He tugged her hand lower to touch the place where they joined. “Feel that, Rey? I’m inside you, I’m the first and the  _ last  _ man who will have you like this, this is  _ mine,  _ you _ are mine.”  _

 

She shuddered in pleasure at the end of that little speech, and Kylo feels her go soft and liquid around his cock. 

 

“That’s my sweet girl,” he said, rocking into her. “That’s it. You are mine, just for me. Me to fuck like this, or up on your knees. Mine to hold in the night and to take from behind in the mornings.”

 

She started to rock up to him then, one hand still playing at her pussy, the other wrapped tightly around his bicep. He’ll probably have nail marks in the morning. 

 

“I’ll kill anyone who tries to keep you from me,” he said. 

 

(He meant it, she could feel his conviction through the bond.)

 

When her stomach muscles started to jump he covered her hand with his own, pushing hard on her clit. She bowed up in a wordless cry, her orgasm sending her mind into a blaze of heavenly white. 

 

Her pleasure poured into Kylo through the bond and is enough to have him emptying himself into her. “Oh, Rey,” he mumbled into her hair as his hips twitched fitfully one last time. 

 

He had enough sense not to crush her, rolling off to the side and cuddling her in close. He noticed that there were tear tracks down her cheeks and he kissed them away, little comet trails of emotion he couldn’t place. 

 

~~~

Once, just before Kylo had left home for good, his- no Ben,  _ Ben’s _ mother- had asked if he had spent the night whispering sweet nothings in Amee’s ears. 

 

Kylo still wasn’t sure what exactly would qualify as a sweet nothings, but he suspected that he and Rey were swapping sweet somethings. 

 

“Why the tears?” he’d asked after he’d washed her again, sudsing her gently as she’d leaned, sated, against his chest. (He took care of what was his.)

 

She rolled over so that they were face to face again. “Have you ever… hmm. Were there ever nights that you felt… hollow?  Just so empty and alone that you couldn’t face your empty bed; your future so wide and colorless that it felt like there was nothing up ahead?”

 

Kylo remembered the pointless night raids that he’d led, the archives he’d explored by saber-light, the training exercises that he’d repeated all through the night. 

 

“Yes,” he said. He ached for her, for the shame that was slithering down the bond from her.

 

She took a deep breath (was she trying not to cry again?), held it for a moment, and let it out slowly. “On those nights I would sit outside and watch the stars. One night I went to the ocean, it was the first night after I’d fixed the skimmer (he knows this, he had teased it from her memories), and I’d try to remember that I was just one little… blip. That people have been here for thousands and thousands of years, and as a species we’ve made it through. That people felt like this before. But in the end I’d always end up trying to remember my family, to remember if I was ever wanted.”

 

Kylo was shattered. He was humbled by her bravery- he’d never have been able to admit that out loud. He was also in awe of her perspective. When he’d felt alone he had tried to make himself feel bigger, stronger. He’d run all the way into Snoke’s arms to do it. 

 

Rey had attempted to make herself seem smaller, to put herself into the perspective of a galaxy of woes. 

 

Kylo leaned forward to kiss her. She tasted of salt water. 

 

“No more,” he said. “I would sink continents to stay with you. You and I- we belong to each other now. You’re mine, but I’m yours just as much. This bond, this… link. It isn’t just one way. 

 

Rey moved to him and cried silently, nearly drowning Kylo in her embarrassment and shame and  _ hope.  _

 

Kylo didn’t know what to say- he wasn’t sure he could say anything. He was suddenly aware that he’d taken on something precious and delicate. She trusted him, trusted him with her body and her deepest secrets. He swallowed, trying to dislodge the lump in his throat, and opened his mouth… to say nothing. 

 

Instead he focused on his emotions, tangled though they were. He pictured them as ripples spreading in a pool, growing larger and larger as they moved. 

 

Kylo knew when Rey felt him, when her self-consciousness had been smothered by the pride and satisfaction and acceptance pouring off Kylo. All of those emotions from him, just for her, and every last one was shot through with joy. 

 

She kissed his chest, put her cheek over the mark, and lay quietly until sleep took her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooray they finally did it!! Thank you for your patience :)


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let her training begin!

He woke her the next morning. “Come on,” he said as she blearily opened her eyes. Kylo was tempted to crawl back into bed with her, but no. “It’s time I started training you properly.”

 

_?? _

 

“I’m going to teach you to fight,” he explained. “You could hold your own against other malnourished, untrained scavengers, but you won’t last a minute against any of the troopers or knights stationed here.”

 

“I thought I was shield girl,” she mumbled as she pushed herself up in bed.

 

Kylo wondered if she was this grumpy when she lived in the desert.

 

“No, I wasn’t this grumpy when I lived in the desert because the sun woke me up, not a great big man.”

 

Ray yanked on her leggings, bound her breasts and arms, and then pulled on her tunic. Her hair was mussed, but she didn’t think she had time to fix her buns. 

 

Kylo led her to the lift and they rode up seven floors. Rey couldn’t picture what the fort looked like or even begin to comprehend how tall it really was. After the lift doors closed he took a protein bar out of his pocket and gave it to her.    
  


They headed down another long, bright corridor. “Eat that and do your weight exercises while I train. I’ll work with you after.”

 

He opened the last set of doors on the right and they walked into a massive room. There were real windows all around the ceiling, which had to be at least thirty feet away. The far left side of the room held weights and ropes and a rack of thin little swords. A locked cabinet held blasters (were those real?) and other assorted weapons. The rest of the room was encircled in thick, clear glass. 

 

Other black-clad figures milled around inside the wide glass enclosure. None of them wore helms, and Kylo removed his own as he stepped up to greet them. He was the tallest of the figures by far, and Rey didn’t move until Kylo poked at her mind.  _ Work! _

 

_ Fine  _ she said, and she moved away to the space with the rubber floor and weights. 

 

Rey did her first round of push ups (those were getting easier, they used a lot of her climbing muscles), squats, and sit ups. Just for something new to do she ran around the edge of the glass enclosure, which conveniently gave her a chance to watch Kylo and the others train. 

 

They seemed to be dueling, pairs spread all around the practice field. Most fought with crackling steel pikes but here and there someone dueled with blasters. Kylo was the only one to fight with a cracking, throbbing sword of deep red. 

 

_ Laser sword,  _ thought Rey, starting her second lap. She’d thought those were only myths as well. 

 

The pairs in the ring separated. Now two stood by side by side and the rest rushed them. 

 

She missed what happened next because she had to go back to the little rubber weight area. When she’d finished and could run again two other people (one was a woman!) were being mobbed. Kylo was standing off to the side watching, his empty sword hilt held loosely in his hand. 

 

Rey went back to the weights. She pushed through muscle fatigue (just a little faster, just a few more) to get back up. She didn’t want to miss seeing Kylo fight.

 

Just her luck- he went last. She’d completed two more rounds of weight-bearing exercises and her jog was down to a crawl by the time Kylo walked into the center of the practice field. 

 

No one went to stand with him, instead the others began to pace around him like vultures looking for a meal. His sword thrummed to life and then oh- he was beautiful and dark; beautiful like furious winter winds, like the sea tossed high before a storm, like an eclipse. He  _ was  _ power, and the hairs of Rey’s arms stood on end. 

 

No matter how many of his knights (for she assumed that these were the Knights of Ren) rushed Kylo they couldn’t seem to touch him. He batted their weapons out of their hands, that massive beam of light shrieking when it came into contact with the blue-grey sheen of the pikes. Someone shot blaster bolts at Kylo, and he used the sword to flick them away. As each knight was disarmed or came within a hairsbreadth of red, burning death he (or she) backed away to stand against the glass walls. 

 

In what seemed a very short time it came down to Kylo and one other man who was short and heavily muscled. 

 

They circled each other, neither willing to make the first move- circling, circling. 

 

Finally the shorter man lunged at Kylo, feinted, and swept up at Kylo’s chest. Kylo bent backwards, neatly avoiding the sweep of the blade, and brought his blade up to point at the other man’s exposed chest. 

 

“You tried that one last week, Royus,” drawled Kylo. 

 

The other man stayed still for a moment before backing down. “You’re right, but really- how many moves do I have left at this point.”

 

Kylo clasped the other man’s shoulder. “You’ll be fine as long as you don’t have to fight  _ me _ ,” he said with causal arrogance. 

 

Rey realized she was standing in one place with her mouth open and her nose practically pressed against the glass barrier. She jolted when one of the knights grinned at her.

 

In ones and twos the knights left the enclosure, reached into a small recessed area near the door, grabbed bottles of water, and left. Once the last one was clear Rey trotted over to the wall reached into the cabinet - it was cold!- and took out a bottle of water too. 

 

She turned to find Kylo directly behind her. He was damp, but wasn’t breathing hard. 

 

(Sometimes life just  _ really  _ wasn’t fair). 

 

“Once you’ve trained for nearly two decades you’ll have better stamina, too,” said Kylo, reaching past her for water. 

 

Rey didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t been flustered this morning after the night before- Snoke, the shields, mating with Kylo- but now she felt small. Kylo was … raw power, it lived in every sharp angle of his face and every movement of his body. He could have anything, do anything, and she was… Rey was having pretensions to greatness. 

 

“You are great, and you will be,” said Kylo, planting his hands on the wall on each side of Rey’s head. He kissed her then, his lips the only thing touching her. 

 

“Your turn,” he said. 

 

He led her into the training ring and put a light wooden sword into her hand. “Not a pike?” asked Rey.

 

“Not a pike,” said Kylo. “You’ll have a saber one day-” 

 

He ‘pathed her an image:  _ Rey, crouched in a fighting stance, her hair braided long down her back, a blue-white saber held even with her shoulder.  _

 

“Teach me,” said Rey. 

 

He led her through a saber form (step, lunge, pivot, step) that looked like a dance when he did it. (She kept getting distracted by how long his legs were, and she knew that he knew.)

 

She repeated the form over and over until it no longer felt like disjointed pieces but one motion, fluid and natural. 

 

“Better,” said Kylo where he watched from a wooden chair that looked too small to support his weight. “Again.”

 

At some point Rey flopped back onto the floor of the practice field, her limbs too weak to support her in the lunge. 

 

Kylo came to stand beside her- he was ridiculously tall, and his shoulders seemed wide enough to block out the light, to hold up the sky like an old-time god. 

 

“Good job,” he said, tugging her up to stand, momentarily swaying. 

 

Kylo had originally planned on having Rey eat with the other knights but now it didn’t seem fair. He’d introduced enough new things; Rey deserved the comfort of a shower and their room. 

 

She was loose limbed as they slowly walked back through all the halls and Kylo wished that she was walking like that because of him. 

 

“Don’t even think about it,” Rey mumbled beside him. 

 

“Are you sore?” Kylo asked as Rey shuffled into their room and the doors hissed shut behind them. 

 

_ A wave of feeling from Rey’s mind: she is sore, she is sore _ everywhere.

 

“It’ll make you strong,” said Kylo, tossing his gloves and helm onto their shelf. 

 

Rey stood in the center of the room wavering between bed and a shower. Abstractly she thought that she might just be too tired to eat. 

 

“You can’t afford to miss a meal at this point,” said Kylo, unclipping his wide steel belt. “Shower, Rey. You’ll feel better for it.”

 

Rey did shower. She stood under the spay with it turned up as hot at it would go after she was clean, reveling in the way her muscles relaxed. 

 

“Turns over,” said Kylo eventually, reaching in to tug her out of the shower stall.

 

As Rey dried off she watched Kylo shampoo his hair. He had his face tilted up to the tiled ceiling and his fingers sunk deep into his now-wet curls. With his hair slicked down to his skull the sharp angles of his face were even more apparent- nose, jaw, cheekbones in sharp repose- but it was a face Rey liked to look at. It was the face of her first real friend, her first lover, and besides that… it was just a good face.

 

_ Thank you,  _ Kylo thought as he rinsed. 

 

Embarrassed, Rey wrapped herself in the towel and scurried out into the room. There was food on the table but she moved past it to the closet. She dressed in one of Kylo’s giant shirts and combed her hair. 

 

Kylo was in his sleep pants and uncovering their dinner trays when she was done. They ate quietly, Rey drooping over her plate. 

 

“Are we reading?” asked Rey when she had finished. 

 

“How about I read to you tonight?” Kylo asked. 

 

“Oh, would you please?” Rey said, grabbing her datapad and thrusting it at Kylo with both hands. 

 

They crawled into bed and got comfortable. Kylo sat against the pillows and Rey curled into him, one thigh slung over his, her head and hand resting on his chest. 

 

Kylo had read The Lord of the Rings dozens of times as a kid. Now he was able to put his mouth on autopilot and dip into Rey’s mind.  She wasn’t dreaming but she wasn’t fully awake. Her thoughts were soft and slow like great puffy clouds drifting in a summer sky. 

 

She liked the sound of his voice, especially the way it rumbled through his chest and into her ear. She liked his heartbeat, it reminded her of the steady sound of the ocean’s waves. 

  
Kylo ran his hand over her hair, which was gently waving as it dried. He didn’t know what he’d done to deserve this, but he would do  _ anything  _ to preserve it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading this and sticking with me for so long! Seriously, I appreciate each and every one of you. 
> 
> I've got an idea for an angsty 5 or 6 chapter fic, but after that... probably I should learn to write fluff. 
> 
> More smut next chapter!


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our lonely babies go one a smutty field trip, sorta.

Rey learned a new form the next day. Kylo made her switch back and forth, back and forth between the forms until they flowed together smoothly. To make matters even more difficult he made her practice her shielding exercises at the same time. 

 

“I can keep up the shields or I can fight, but I’m fucking useless if I have to do both,” she complained. She was dizzy, so she crouched with her elbows on her knees and her head hung low.

 

_ A surge of warmth up their bond wiping away the nausea and spinning head.  _

 

Rey slowly straightened. 

 

“One last time,” said Kylo. “But this time… let your muscles remember. Don’t actively think about the moves or the weight of the shields. Just… open to it.”

 

It sounded stupid. It probably was stupid, but Rey also knew what he was trying to say. If she thought too hard during a climb about how high she was or where her next handhold would be she was  _ far  _ more likely to fall. 

 

She made it all the way through the first form, shields intact. The shields then crumbled somewhere around the start of the second form, and she thudded down along with them. 

 

“Enough,” she wheezed. 

 

“That was better,” said Kylo, hauling her to her feet. “I’ve got more meetings this afternoon, so go back to the room and practice with your shields.”

 

“What about the greenery?” Rey asked. It felt like it had been  _ years  _ since she’d seen the sun. 

 

“That’s fine,” said Kylo as he tugged on his gloves. “I’ll send someone to stand outside the door.”

 

“Where do you really think I’m going to go?” asked Rey, stung. 

 

“Not to keep you in. The knights have been… curious, and talking.”

 

“Oh.” Rey wasn’t sure she wanted to meet any of his knights yet. She wasn’t sure of her place here, and the ... _ thing,  _ the tension between her and Kylo was starting to get to her. He was her captor, he was her teacher, and he was her lover. She didn’t know how to untangle those threads. 

 

“I’ll let you know when my meetings are over,” said Kylo as the helm sealed over his chin. 

 

Rey ate her protein bar as she rode down to the greenery floor. Once there she gathered a veritable feast of fruits and fresh vegetables and sat in a pool of simulated sunlight to eat. She missed the sun; it was no wonder that Kylo’s skin was so soft and pale. He never saw daylight, and when he did he was cloaked and gloved and cut off from all sensation. 

 

Rey didn’t think she could live like that. She unwrapped her arms to leave more skin open to the sunshine and cleared her mind for meditation. When she checked she could feel Kylo above her somewhere to the left. His presence on the Force was a deep, swallowing darkness that always seemed in danger of sucking her in and consuming her. It was beautiful in a way, reminiscent of the coiled energy and power that always seemed to radiate from his mind and skin. 

 

She snapped her shields around all of Kylo’s mind and held it, trying to remember to breathe. Her instinct was to hold her breath in while she held the shields as though any movement, even the rise and fall of her chest, would be enough to send her protections toppeling. Rey made it a minute, maybe two, and then the shields fell away and she was panting in the warm, humid air. 

 

She centered herself again, breathing deeply, before trying to build a little vault in Kylo’s mind. She experimented with the bond, trying to see if  _ she  _ could choose which memories to move into the vault and was met with limited success. It seemed she’d need Kylo’s cooperation to actually move thoughts into the little safe. 

 

Rey let the connection fall and she relaxed once more. She wanted to hold the shields now, to breath through the strain and see how long she could remain centered with the protections up. 

 

First she built her own little vault and shoved it as deep down as it would go. She could barely feel her own, it seemed to nestle in her thoughts as though it had always been there. Next she constructed the same safe in Kylo’s mind, once more shoving it deep into his psyche. It was easier to work within his mind now, the bond seemed stronger and his thoughts more familiar. His shield was a strain, though, a mental weight that was just slightly too heavy. 

 

She breathed in, trying not to think of the weight of his shields, trying to open herself up to the emotions and sensations that were swirling both inside herself and inside the bond. 

 

When the mental connection became tenuous she ignored it and focused on her physical self. Her legs were folded against the grass beneath her. One leg had started to fall asleep; she’d been sitting too long. Her body was warm, and the sun made the space behind her eyelids red. 

 

The shields started to shake, but she wasn’t ready to let go, not yet. 

 

_ Pinch yourself.  _

 

Kylo’s dark spark was hovering in the back of her mind.  _ Do it.  _

 

Rey did, still without opening her eyes. 

 

_ Harder. Somewhere soft.  _

 

Rey pinched herself hard on the underside of her arm. The tiny jolt of pain distracted her and the shields held. 

 

Kylo didn’t say anything, but Rey could sense his satisfaction. She focused on that, on Kylo’s continued presence in her mind until she couldn’t hold the shields anymore, until she felt like she was smothering under the strain. 

 

When she released the vault in Kylo’s mind she physically fell back as well, sprawled spread-eagle in her patch of sunlight between the trees. 

 

_ Better,  _ said Kylo. 

 

_ How long was that? _

 

_ We can discuss it when I’m out of the meetings. Soon.  _

~~~

 

Kylo found Rey still sprawled out in the sun almost an hour later when his meetings with Hux and the other higher crew members finally ended. Gossip about “the girl” was running rampant through the First Order, and Hux seemed to be drawing these meetings out just to spite Kylo. 

 

Kylo sat down next to Rey’s relaxed body and hesitated before pulling off his helm, gloves, and coat. It was hot in here, and he’d set down orders that no one was to come into the greenery while Rey was inside, salad-bar politics be damned. 

 

Kylo was going to have to introduce Rey to Hux and the other Knights soon. He was going to have to define her place as one of Snoke’s projects and recruits, but he wasn’t sure how to go about it. 

 

As things were now Rey was a rumor much discussed. Was she a prisoner? Was she a volunteer? Was she the leman of Kylo Ren, First of the Knights? Introducing her to the knights would dispel most of that gossip, but Hux… Hux always made things complicated. He seemed to think it was his role in life. 

 

Right now Hux suspected that Kylo’s project with “the girl” was distracting Snoke from the logistical missions of the First Order. When that was confirmed, Kylo knew that Hux would be out for vengeance. Hux had hated Kylo since day one, treating him like the tow-headed younger sibling who ended up being not only cuter, but far more talented. 

 

Honestly, Kylo couldn’t blame the man, because all of those things were true. 

 

After fifteen minutes of such contemplations Kylo bent to kiss Rey awake. 

 

She came-to quickly with a little furrown between her brows. “What?”

 

Kylo was braced over her, his head cocked to the side. “Did you sleep this much in the desert?”

 

“Yes,” said Rey, looking up at him. “What else are you gonna do when it’s more than a hundred degrees out?”

 

“Fair point,” said Kylo, nuzzling the skin beneath her ear with his nose. 

 

“What are you doing?” Rey hissed. “What if someone comes in?”

 

“I’ve got the doors locked; relax.” Kylo licked her collarbone; she tasted like sweat and sunshine. 

 

“You’re sure?” she asked.

 

He could feel her softening; her fingers were back in his hair where he liked them. 

 

“Yes,” Kylo murmured as he tilted her up and dragged her tunic off over her head. 

 

Her hands were working at the waistband of his pants while he ripped his shirt off over his head. 

 

“Oh,  _ god, _ Ray mumbled as she got distracted by Kylo’s chest.”

 

“Not quite, baby,” Kylo said as he unwrapped Rey’s breast band. 

 

Rey succeeded in freeing Kylo’s cock from his trousers. Remembering what he’d done for her (those dark curls against the pale gold skin of her thigh) she leaned forward to take him in her mouth. 

 

“Oh- Rey-  _ fuck,”  _ Kylo moaned, his hands moving to cup her skull. 

 

He smelled different here, musky and salty and ...dark. Rey felt Kylo gently guiding her head backwards and forwards and she gripped him at the base to hold his cock steady. When he hissed and twitched again she figured he must like that, so she moved her head and fist in time. 

 

“You look so pretty,” he whispered. Ray peeked up at him and he groaned again. “So pretty with those pink lips around my prick.”

 

Rey moaned a little and Kylo pressed her back away from his cock. 

 

“But-”

 

“I don’t want this over so soon.” Kylo pushed Rey onto her back and tugged her leggings down and off. Sprawled on his side beside her Kylo let his fingers trail over her soft pussy lips. 

 

“You’re so pretty, Rey,” he murmured, taking one nipple into his mouth. She arched a little, feeling that heat curling in her stomach again. 

 

“Kylo,” she murmured, running her fingers through that soft, dark hair. 

 

He switched to the other breast, laving it with his tongue before gripping Rey’s waist and rolling so that she was sprawled on top of him. 

 

He sent her an image- her riding his dick, his hands on her breasts. 

 

“Really?” Rey asked, pushing herself up.

 

“Yes, please, god.” Kylo wedged a hand between himself and her soft wet cunt. He found her clit and rubbed there, testing her pleasure through the bond. 

 

“Oh!” She sat up a little straighter. 

 

Kylo levered himself up too, and once more Rey was fascinated by the way the muscles across his abdomen contracted when he did that. He put one hand at the small of her back, fisted his cock in the other, and guided her over it.

 

_ Yes? _

 

_ Yes.  _

 

She sank onto him slowly, her hands on his shoulders, and Kylo thought that if he died in that moment it would have been worth it. She was  _ exquisite-  _ smiling at this new experience, her cheeks flushed from the sun and her arousal, her cunt wet and welcoming around him. 

 

“Beautiful,” Kylo whispered, and he was thrilled to see her blush. 

_ Like this,  _ he whispered in her mind as she faltered. He put his hands on her hips and guided her forward and back, forward and back. 

 

“I like this,” she whispered, looking him in the eye. “I like you, and the garden, and …  _ this.” _

 

She blushed again, and Kylo couldn’t contain himself. He kissed her, his palms cupping her cheeks, trying to pour all the things he couldn’t say into that one point of contact. 

 

“Me too,” he said, laying back to watch her. 

 

Rey had a rhythm going now, one that had that tight, needy feeling akin to hunger moving through her belly. Kylo was watching her with those dark eyes of his; his gaze hot and admiring. She’d always expected mating to be painful or embarrassing, but this was  _ wonderful.  _

 

Kylo began to work her little clit again, keeping time with Rey’s hips, and while she watched he withdrew his fingers and popped them in his mouth. 

 

“Delicious,” he whispered, leering up at her. 

 

“I- I-”

 

“I’ve got you, little one.” The fingers were back and Rey wanted to weep in relief. 

 

That pleasure swallowed her again and Rey collapsed forward onto Kylo’s chest. He rolled, pinning her to the grass. He had one arm under her back, his fingers digging into her shoulder, and the other braced beside her. 

 

As she looked up at him, her eyes still hazy with bliss, he growled his own release, his hips rutting against hers. 

 

They continued to look at each other as sweat cooled on their bodies and their breathing gradually slowed. 

 

“Is it always…?” Rey asked. 

 

“No,” said Kylo as he shoved away to sprawl beside her. “It’s definitely not always like that.”

 

They lay there as the pseudo-sun slowly set into the night cycle. Rey’s stomach growled into the hush of the greenery, making Kylo chuckle. 

 

“I feel like I spend all my time feeding you,” he said, getting to his feet and tugging on his trousers. 

 

“That’s not my fault,” said Rey. 

 

He kissed her again, sudden and gentle, while she clutched her shirt to her unbound breasts. 

 

“Kylo,” she whispered, and he kissed her quiet. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another smutty chapter! I've managed to start another Reylo fic, this one in canon-verse. I'll likely start posting that one (even though it's going quite a bit slower) once this one is up. 
> 
> THANK YOU ALL for reading this much! I seriously am grateful to each and every one of you. And thank you for the warm wishes! My heat HAS BEEN REPAIRED!
> 
> Are there any fluffy AUs that need explored? I just scrolled through my AO3 works and I don't think I've written a single fluff piece. Something is broken within me.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introductions.  
> A small smut scene.

They wandered back up to their rooms and climbed into the shower together before dinner. “I have to introduce you to the knights and some of the command staff,” said Kylo as he lathered Rey’s back. He was fascinated with the nape of Rey’s neck, the little knot of bone that swept down into her spine. 

 

(A hint of tension crept into the bond.)

 

“How will you introduce me?” asked Rey. 

 

_ Ah. “ _ As my apprentice,” said Kylo, turning Rey to face him. 

 

She didn’t look up at his face, but instead traced doodles in the water droplets running over his chest. “Will we still…”

 

_ She sent him an image of them in the greenery, his face caught in a grin with his hair spilling over the grass. _

 

“Yes,” said Kylo, voice firm. He tipped up her chin. “I’m not letting you go, Rey. You’re  _ mine.”  _

 

“I just… don’t know how to handle that,” she said, happier now. “You as my boss, my teacher, and… everything else.”

 

“Outside I expect you to follow my orders like any other knight or soldier,” said Kylo. Rey was washing  _ him  _ now, and it was getting increasingly difficult to focus. “But when we’re alone, especially in here… we’re just us. Okay?”

 

“Yes,” said Rey, and she stretched up to kiss him. 

 

The next day (Rey reminded herself that it was day nineteen, she hadn’t even been here a month yet) they started off as normal. Energy bars in the lift on the way to practice, Rey lifting her weights and running while Kylo trained with the knights, Kylo fighting back the other six warriors. 

 

When the knights usually would have disbanded and left for the day Kylo gestured for Rey to join them in the ring. 

 

_ She was red-faced and sweaty, but at least everyone else was as well, _ thought Rey. 

 

She stood a few feet away from Kylo and slightly behind him. 

 

“This is Rey,” said Kylo, gesturing to her. “Rumors have been flying around about what she’s doing here-”

 

“Nobody gossips like soldiers-” one of the knights quipped.

 

“And as her training is moving along I decided it’s time to formally introduce her. She’s here as my apprentice; she’s a Force-user too.”

 

The knights look back at Rey with a new respect and interest in their eyes. 

 

“Where you from, kid?” one asked. She’d later learn that he was called Derahm. 

 

“Near Jakku in Sector Three,” she said, both nervous and defiant. 

 

“Jesus, kid, what did you do?” another (Galen) asked. 

 

“Nothing,” she said, confused. “I grew up there.”

 

Some of the knights looked at her in pity, the rest looked slightly impressed. “Takes balls to survive that,” said the first man. 

 

Rey had no idea what to say so she shrugged. 

 

“Now that we’ve been formally introduced are you two going to start hanging with us?” the woman asked. Her name was Mitska, she was easy to pick out of the other knights so Rey already knew her name. 

 

“Yes, we’ll join you for lunch and then come back up here to train,” said Kylo. 

 

“Excellent,” said another man. “We’ve missed watching you fuck with Hux.”

 

“Has he met her yet?” someone else asked. 

 

“No,” said Kylo. 

 

“Oooh, it is going to burn his ass that we met her before he did. ‘Kylo Ren, I am the director and general of the First Order, I need to be briefed on all occurrences,’” the man mocked. This man was the slimmest and appeared to be the youngest of the group. 

 

They all walked to the lift together. The first group stepped in, leaving Kylo and Rey with Roytus (who Rey had already identified as Kylo’s second), and the young looking one. 

 

“This going to be a problem?” Kylo asked as they stepped into the now-empty lift car. 

 

“Nah,” said Roytus. “They’ve been betting on who she was for weeks. An apprentice, a Force user, that’s best-case scenario.”

 

“Fucking awesome,” said the other. “I’m Symun, by the way.”

 

“You fight with blasters,” said Rey, remembering the practice skirmishes she’d watched. 

 

Symun grinned at her. “That’s me. Don’t have to be big and strong to wield a blaster.”

 

“Don’t let him fool you,” said Roytus. “This fucker is  _ fast.”  _

 

Kylo quietly watched Rey interact with the other two as they walked down a corridor towards a doorway through which the smell of food was wafting. 

 

Once they made it inside Rey stopped for a minute, stunned. There were several long tables flanked by benches along the length of the room. The other wall bore a long display of food. 

 

Rey stood stunned.  _ Officer’s mess  _ Kylo told her. 

 

“You’re not in Jakku anymore, kid,” said Roytus. “Come on.”

 

Kylo briefly pressed against the small of her back and Rey followed Roytus to the line of food.  _ Don’t go crazy and make yourself sick  _ Kylo warned Rey through the bond.  _ Puking or not, we’re training after this.  _

 

With that warning in mind Rey resisted the temptation to pile some of  _ everything  _ onto her plate. Instead she let Kylo get in front of her and she took a scoop of whatever he did, though one of a significantly smaller size. 

 

_ Beef roast, carrots, and green beans  _ Kylo informed her.  _ The carrots and beans were grown in the greenery. The bread is real, too. _

 

They sat down where the other knights were waiting, a spot left right in the middle for Kylo and Rey. They were talking among themselves already so it wasn’t too awkward. It was kind of ...nice, Rey decided. They liked each other. 

 

She couldn’t stop the surprised “oh!” that escaped her lips when she put the first bite of roast in her mouth. 

 

“It’s good,” she said when a couple of the knights turned to look at her. 

 

“The cooks here are awesome,” said the man who had asked where she was from. “I’m Durahm.”

 

“And I’m Galen,” said the man sitting next to Durahm. “Kylo- Hux is coming over and he doesn’t look happy.”

 

Rey felt a prickle on the back of her neck and Kylo rose smoothly, tugging her with him. 

 

“General Hux,” said Kylo, his voice mocking. 

 

“Kylo Ren,” said the severely dressed redhead approaching them. “I assume this is the girl everyone has been talking about so much?”

 

He hadn’t looked at Rey. She didn’t know whether or not to be relieved or offended. 

 

“This is my apprentice, Rey,” said Kylo. 

 

Hux’s nostrils flared.  “Well?” he said after a short silence. “Aren’t you going to tell her who I am?”

 

“I already called you ‘general’,” said Kylo. Rey could feel his glee. 

 

Hux turned to Rey in exasperation. “I’m General Hux. I run the First Order and oversee the army, the logistics, and answer only to Lord Snoke, our Supreme Ruler.”

 

“Funnily enough, I only answer to Snoke as well,” said Kylo, loud enough for only Rey and Hux to hear him. 

 

“Nice to meet you, General,” said Rey. That brief sentence seemed safe enough. 

 

“Good luck with your… teacher,” said Hux before turning on his heel and marching off. 

 

Kylo and Rey sat back down and there was a moment of charged silence between the knights. 

 

“That was amazing,” laughed the last of the knights to be introduced. “I’m Cuv, by the way.”

 

“Right?” said the Mitska. “His little nostril flare.”

 

Only Roytus looked worried. 

~~~

Rey’s training didn’t go any better that day. She could learn to fight or she could hold the shields. Both wasn’t happening. 

 

She was sore when they left the training room again, but it was morphing into something… positive. The brunt of the pain had faded, leaving an ache that spoke of productivity and progress. 

 

Kylo and Rey didn’t talk on the way back to their room. They stood in silence thinking of the day and ignoring the pent-up frustration running up and down their bond.

 

That silence snapped when the doors to their room hissed shut behind them. Rey wasn’t sure who made the first move- she lunged at Kylo and he grabbed her around the waist with those big hands she loved to watch. 

 

“Now,” growled Kylo, taking her mouth in a kiss that was all teeth. He had one hand under her ass, she had her legs around his waist, and his other hand was fisted in her hair, yanking her head back. 

 

“Yes,” Rey said as she felt Kylo bite at her neck. “Yes, yes, yes.” Her hands scrabbled at his shirt, his belt. “Take them off!”

 

Kylo dropped her to the floor and shucked off his clothes as fast as she could. He beat Rey; she was tangled in her sweat-dampened leggings.  He knocked her to the floor, ripped the leggings off of her, and shoved his head between her thighs. She was salty with sweat and arousal and Kylo groaned into her.  _ This  _ is what man was designed to do; to take his woman while his blood pumped in his veins and his woman yanked on his hair. 

 

“Up here,” said Rey, giving his hair a harder tug than usual. In one great lunge he was over her body and kissing her, letting her taste her sweat and slick. 

 

“Now,” she said, and Kylo was only too happy to oblige. She gasped when he thrust into her, shoving her a few inches across the smooth black floor of the room. He continued to work into her, strong and steady.

 

_ So good  _ she whispered through the bond.  _ Fuck, so so good.  _

 

_ I’m trying sweetheart.  _

 

Rey could taste his smile.  _ I’m close, I think. _

 

Kylo reached between them to rub at her clit. 

 

“Oh, god,” said Rey, bucking into his fingers. “Like that, just like that.” 

 

She turned her head to the side and gritted her teeth as her legs started to twitch. 

 

Kylo’s sticky hand gripped her chin. “Look at me, sweetheart. I want to see you come, come on my cock.”

 

Rey moaned, surprising even herself, and surrendered to the pleasure. 

 

Kylo watched her eyes glaze over and felt triumph. She was his. As he felt his own orgasm building he pulled out of  Rey’s liquid heat and came over her belly and breasts. 

  
She was  _ his. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully the slow burn was worth it! There's only four chapters left after this, I will have to up my writing on the next fic! Next chapter is the smuttiest thing I've written in a while.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some plot, and then FILTH.

Rey dreamed that night. She dreamed of a landscape covered with blue and green; of so much water she could never see the end. Kylo was there, sitting beside her in the sun. 

 

“Is this real?” she asked him. “Is there really this much green in the whole world?”

 

“It’s real,” he said. “This… I’ve been here before.”

 

Rey turned to look around, wondering what had taken them to this place. Behind them was a little house of wood, light glowing from the windows. 

 

“What is this place?” she asked. 

 

Kylo gave a one armed shrug and continued to stare across the water. 

 

“So… this must be your dream,” mused Rey. “And I’m here too, but ...I’m aware of it. I don’t think we’ve done this before.”

 

“We’re… closer,” said Kylo, tugging Rey onto his lap. He didn’t make any further moves; he just held her there, their faces inches apart. “We’ve come together physcially; emotionally. The Force- or whatever caused this- must recognize that fact.”

 

Rey pushed a silky black curl behind his ear. “I don’t mind it, at least not right now. I’m glad I could see this place,” she said, her tone wistful. 

 

“I could take you here,” said Kylo, looking into her eyes. “We could live here, just the two of us. No First Order, no politics or fighting.”

 

Rey thought of all the scars marring the perfect white skin on his body. Kylo had done his fair share of fighting. 

 

“Maybe,” she said, looking around the rocky beach once more. “We need to escape first. We’d need to make sure we weren’t hunted.”

 

“Don’t think about that,” said Kylo, dragging her down for a kiss.

 

Rey woke abruptly to Kylo shaking her. “Snoke,” he said, and that was all the explanation she needed. They dressed in anxious silence before riding down to his lair.

 

It would be Rey’s first test of her shields; she had to open herself wide to his intrusion while maintaining invisible safes of information in both her her mind and Kylo’s. 

 

It worked. 

 

Snoke watched though Rey’s eyes as she  learned to fight, as she lay beneath Kylo in his bed, as she ate ice cream for the very first time.  He listened to the conversations they had in the dark while their heads rested side by side on the pillow. 

 

Because she didn’t fight, because she breathed into the pain, Rey was still upright and conscious when Snoke left her alone in her head. 

 

“Oh, well done indeed littlest friend,” said Snoke, his ravaged features twisted in glee. “How quickly you learn, how quickly you become so attached.”

 

It was Kylo’s turn next. He hoped Rey’s shields would hold for him as well. Snoke pushed into Kylo’s mind (the pain, oh, the pain) and together they watched Rey’s reading lessons, her saber forms, and all the times she’d come apart under Kylo’s mouth of fingers or cock. 

 

Snoke slithered out of Kylo’s mind and he breathed a sigh of relief. 

 

“Leave us,” Snoke said to Rey. She bowed (not as low as she could have, Kylo noted) and left the chamber. Kylo knew she would wait for him outside in the hall. 

 

“Do you remember our conversations on attachment, young Lord Ren?” asked Snoke. “All the dangers that emotional entanglement can bring?”

 

“Yes,” said Kylo, bowing his head in false subservience. 

 

“Don’t make her the price you pay, as you did with your father,” said Snoke. “She is young and strong, she meets your human need for companionship, but do not fall prey to love, to compassion. These feelings  _ are  _ weaknesses.” 

 

“I understand, Supreme Leader.”

 

“Otherwise…” The images were back.  _ Rey with child, Kylo’s saber cutting her head from her body; his gloved hands cradling a child with dark curls and Rey’s tawny eyes.  _

 

“Go. Continue to train her, but be wary, apprentice.”

 

“I will Master.”

 

Kylo bowed and left, icy sweat sticking to his skin. 

 

Rey let the shields drop as soon as Kylo came around the corner. “I held them,” she said, though there was no triumph in her voice. 

 

“And it’s good that you did. Snoke worries that we are ...overly attached to each other,” said Kylo. 

 

“I thought that’s what he wanted?” asked Rey. 

 

“It was, to a point. But together… it complicates things.”  _ We’d be willing to run away,  _ he told her silently as they walked down the corridor to their room.  _ Together we’d be powerful, certainly more powerful than the guards and my knights. We could lead a rebellion against him.  _

 

_ Oh,  _ said Rey. Snoke’s behavior now made more sense.  _ Well… we do want to run away  _ she said, and there was a smile in her thoughts. 

 

“Yes, yes we do,” said Kylo as they walked into their room. He ‘pathed her the lake view from their dream.  _ I still want this,  _ he whispered. 

 

Rey was almost surprised by the surge of emotion she felt from him.  _ So do I.  _

~~~

Rey’s progress in training moved quickly after that first week. She steadily grew in strength with the Force; it was almost as though her latent capacity for the… magic, or whatever it was, recognized Snoke and Rey’s need for protection and strength. 

 

Once she was no longer a danger to herself and others Rey would spar one on one with volunteers from Kylo’s knights. More often than not it was with Mitska, but Galen and Durahm took turns as well.  After nearly a month of having Kylo lurk in the edges of the training ring he finally decided to return to his non-combat duties in the base. 

 

Hux, of course, was insufferable. Kylo had been skipping meetings, taking Snoke’s attention, and generally reminding Hux of his presence. It had only been a matter of time before Hux invented some method of revenge. 

 

“Don’t you think we should settle this the… traditional way?” Hux sneered, one orange eyebrow raised. They were standing around one of the base’s many high-gloss conference tables. Hux had questioned Kylo’s leadership abilities several times over, ending with the suggestion that perhaps Kylo should sit out the upcoming mission to D’Qar. 

 

Kylo knew he was being baited, but self control had never been in his skill set. His life’s story was littered with decisions made in seconds and regretted for years. “Name the place,” he said through gritted teeth, sabre in hand. 

 

Hux scoffed. “Oh, not the two of us. That would be terribly unsporting now, wouldn’t it. Probably would be quite boring for you. No… let’s have our seconds settle this issue themselves.” 

 

Kylo settled back. “Royus would welcome-”

 

“Not Royus,” said Hug, smugness radiating off him in waves. “The girl.”

 

_ Fuck. Fuck!  _ Hux would pick a public place for this confrontation, would goad Kylo into agreeing to the fight without waiting to hear it all through. This was his fucking fault, it would smash the trust he’d slowly built with her into nothing. 

 

And Snoke… if Rey was killed in this fight, the things Snoke would do to him didn’t bear thinking about. 

 

“To first blood,” said Kylo with forced casualness. “After, all, Lord Snoke wouldn’t appreciate his prized pet being taken away too soon.”

 

Hux gave a little one-armed shrug. “Of course.”

 

Kylo turned and strode from the room. 

 

~~~

Kylo didn’t know much about women, but he did know enough to bring Rey a peace offering along with the news of his fuck up. 

 

“I… Hux challenged me to a duel. Then he changed it to seconds, and I agreed before I found out that by seconds, he meant you.” 

 

Rey looked up from her dinner. “You want me to fight a duel?” she asked, incredulous. “Why?”

 

“Because I’m a fucking moron,” said Kylo, shoving his tray away from him and standing.  “If we back down now, Hux wins and my knights lose the respect of the First Order soldiers. If you fight and win it makes your position here… tenuous.”

 

“What the hell am I supposed to fight  _ with?”  _ asked Rey. She had grown up in the deserts of Sector 3- she knew the politics of territory fights. 

 

“That- well. This.” Kylo took a silver, thin canister out of his pocket and set it on the table in front of her. 

 

“It was my grandfather’s,” he said, and Rey realized that Kylo Ren was  _ bashful.  _

 

Rey stood, took the canister in hand and looked at it for a long moment. It was light, shockingly so, and felt slightly warm to the touch. 

 

When she thumbed on the saber a pale, nearly colorless blue beam of light shot out. It hummed lightly, but was nowhere near the rumbling, strobing throb of Kylo’s tri-blade saber. 

 

“It’s beautiful,” she said, staring down at it. 

 

Kylo shrugged again. “Deadly things often are.”

 

_ Just like you,  _ Rey whispered. 

 

~~~

“A week, Rey. We’ve only got a week before the fight. Work harder,” Kylo shouted over the shrieks of clashing sabers. 

 

“It’s not my fault,” Rey said, bending backwards so deeply that her buns nearly touched the floor. “You’re the one who volunteered me for this stupid fight.”

 

“I thought it would be Roytus!” Kylo grunted as he parried Rey’s blows. 

 

Moments later their fight ended with Kylo’s saber pointed at Rey’s throat. 

 

“Dammit Rey,” Kylo shouted, turning away and throwing a rack of training swords across the practice arena. “She’d almost as big as I am. You have to get faster if you aren’t going to get fucking killed.”

 

Rey’s color was high and she was panting as she watched Kylo rage. She could feel his fear burning strong and acrid in their bond; it was the only reason she didn’t yell back. 

 

“So I’ll get faster,” she said. “Let’s try again.”

 

The next sparring match ended much like the first, and Rey could feel Kylo’s terror and self loathing.

 

“I need a minute,” she said. She walked to the cool box recessed into the wall and pulled out a bottle of water. Sometimes she still couldn’t believe that she could now drink as much water as she wanted; she tried to always have a bottle with her just in case. 

 

Rey sat down with her legs loosely crossed next to the wall. 

 

She breathed through emotions, deconstructing them and boxing them away. When her mind was clear and she could feel the force moving through her once more she gently nudged at Kylo’s mind. 

 

_ It’ll be okay  _ she whispered. 

 

_ Don’t say that. This is my fault, my fault.  _

 

_ It’s what’s happening. We can’t back down now, not without putting your position in danger or getting Snoke involved. We’ll train.  _

 

(Wordless regret and despair and anger from Kylo, though this was anger turned inwards.)

 

They sparred again and again, until Kylo’s rage was a throbbing, nearly-sentient presence in the room and Rey’s shoulder was too weak to lift her saber. 

 

“Enough,” said Kylo. “Go back to the room. I’ll be in after you.”

 

“Are you okay?” Rey asked. 

 

“I’m fine,” said Kylo, not turning towards Rey. “Go. Go!”

 

Rey went, and he was almost disappointed that she went without a fight. 

 

He tried to run himself out of mad; he ran until he knew Rey was worried (he could feel it in the bond, this connection he hadn’t asked for) and his tunic was wet through. 

 

He snapped in the lift. He was holding his helm in his hand, the stupid helm that he’d embraced after Snoke had tried to punish him with it. 

 

_ You’re too emotional, young Solo,  _ Snoke had told him sometime during Kylo’s first year with the First Order.  _ You will never be an effective leader, an effective fighter if all can see what you think.  _

 

He’d worn the helm anytime he was in public for a month. It cut off his peripheral vision, the filtered air tasted stale, and it was even less sensation than he’d been allowed before. 

 

But. 

 

It had made his sense of the Force greater. By the end of the month his Force-sense had been able to smell the emotions of others (particularly fear) and if he concentrated he could compensate for his lack of peripheral vision by feeling out objects near him through the Force. 

 

Kylo Ren looked at his helm and then slammed it against the wall of the lift. He put all his rage behind it, all the muscle on his too-big frame, and over and over he crushed the helm into the steel cage of the lift. 

 

When he reached the floor with his room (their room) he left the shattered helm in the wreckage of the car. 

 

Rey was showered and curled up on the bed with her datapad when Kylo slammed into the room. He kissed her hard (he knew she liked the way he looked when he was sweaty and flushed) before ducking into the shower. 

 

Rey’s proximity helped to wash away some of his ire. Even now, when he’d gotten her into this dangerous mess, she was content to read, to have three meals a day, to know she’d share his bed that night. 

 

Once more Rey humbled him.

 

Once he was clean Kylo wrapped a towel around his hips and moved to the edge of the bed where Rey sprawled belly-down. Kylo crouched and kissed her. “I don’t deserve you,” he whispered. 

 

Rey kissed him back, one hand cradling his cheek. “Who are we to decide what we deserve? I was nothing but a desert rat. I was nothing, and here I am.”

 

Kylo fisted a handful of her hair and tugged her head back, forcing her neck to arch. “Never say that. Never!”

 

Instead of wiggling against Kylo’s tight grip in her hair or tapping his mind and asking to be released Rey relaxed into his grasp with a little sigh that traveled straight to Kylo’s groin. 

 

“I want you, Rey,” he warned her. “Now.”

 

_ Then take me.  _

 

She was still almost prudish in what she would say out loud, but recently she’d taken to sending him little fantasies or memories of them together through their bond. She was sneaky with it too- a few days ago she’d sent him an explicit image of her on her knees with his cock in her mouth while they were sparring in the morning. She’d almost won that round, and Kylo hadn’t even been able to explain to his knights why he’d almost fallen over halfway through the match. 

 

After that they’d agreed to keep training professional. Mostly. Neither could help their moments of admiration and lust from filtering through the bond occasionally. 

 

Kylo flipped Rey over onto her back and sprawled across her. He kissed her leisurely as he tugged her arms up over her head and watched in satisfaction as she wrapped her fingers around the edge of the headboard. “Leave those there,” he said, loving the way this position thrust her soft breasts up and out. 

 

Rey felt… something wrap against her wrists, locking them in place. Her eyes went wide and she jerked against the invisible restraints out of reflex. Kylo raised his head from where he’d been worrying one nipple through the black fabric of one of his purloined shirts and gave her a look of smug amusement. 

 

Rey watched, worrying her lower lip in between her teeth, as Kylo’s big hands moved to the collar of his shirt, gripped the fabric, and ripped. The part of Rey that had lived without creature comforts for so many years was horrified at the waste, but the female part of Rey, the part of her that had genetic memories of sleeping in caves and picking only the strongest of mates… that part of Rey went wet and welcoming at her lover’s power. 

 

“Yes, Kylo, yes please,” she was mumbling as Kylo’s lips cruised down the gold surface of her belly, here and there pausing to bite her or suck a love-bruise. She’s wear the evidence of their coupling tomorrow, and that thought made her shiver. 

 

Kylo had apparently caught that thought.  _ I wish I could mark you where people could see. My warrior, my apprentice,  _ mine. 

 

He rocked back onto his knees and tugged Rey’s legs apart, her ankles stretched towards each side of the bed. That same pressure that was around her wrists locked her ankles in place. She tugged experimentally against them. 

 

“Beautiful,” he whispered, and he showed Rey how she looked- spread out before him like a feast, like a sacrifice, her hair mussed and her pupils blown wide with lust. The muscles in her arms and abdomen rippled under her skin when she tested the hold of her bonds, and her nipples were tawny and pebbled. 

 

Somehow Rey managed to go even wetter. 

 

Kylo made himself comfortable between her legs and slid both hands under her ass.  _ I wish I could keep you here all the time,  _ he told her as he nosed into her flushed folds.  _ I’d be fighting and knowing that you were here, ready for me whenever I pleased.  _

 

Rey felt that familiar coil of arousal beginning to tighten low in her belly. 

 

Kylo’s inner monologue went on; even his mental voice had gone low and raspy with want.  _ When I sat in meetings and listened to Hux drone I could imagine you down here alone, the whole room smelling of your lust for me. _

 

Rey whimpered and clamped her eyes shut as though that would help block out the images he was painting in her head. 

 

Kylo’s hands were tightening on Rey’s ass, and she vaguely, kind of fuzzily managed to think that she’d probably have bruises there too. 

 

_ I’d like to give you bruises there. I’d like to put you up on your knees and work my cock into your sweet little cunt and then hit your perfect ass and feel you tighten with each smack of my palm.  _

 

Rey wasn’t thinking in words now; her world was Kylo- his mouth on her cunny and his words in her mind, fogging her thoughts over in a warm, pink cloud of lust and contentment. She was his and he was hers; why did life need to be more complicated than that?

 

_ It doesn’t, little one. It doesn’t need to be more complicated than that. Stay with me, be mine,  _ mine,  _ until death claims us both. I would give you galaxies, power, a home- anything I had could be yours.  _

 

Rey came, her back arching and her heels digging into the mattress. Kylo followed her motions, his tongue working more gently, drawing out Rey’s descent back into her body. While she shuddered and twitched he stroked her legs and winnowed his fingers through the curls covering her mons. 

 

“We can do better than one,” he said. He stretched out beside her, wiped his face on the sheet, and let those long, beautiful fingers find her clitoris again. 

 

“But- but-” said Rey. “I can’t.” That was the most cohesive she was capable of making at the moment. 

 

“I said you could have anything,” said Kylo, bending to kiss the tip of her nose. 

 

_ But- you-  _ Rey was back to making those little gasping noises Kylo had come to love and covet. 

 

“Oh, I’m enjoying this,” he said, watching as her stomach muscles began to jump in time to the movement of his fingers. Rey was an instrument for his pleasure and he knew just how to play her. 

 

Rey couldn’t seem to stop the noises that were slipping from her mouth now; little moans and gasps and hitching, sob-like breaths. There was a part of her that was still monitoring herself, and that small kernel was absolutely mortified that she had been reduced to this.

 

Kylo pinched Rey’s clit and then his face was  _ there,  _ filling her vision, her world.  “I want to hear you,” he whispered, peppering her face with kisses. “I want to hear my name on your lips. I want everyone to hear as you come apart just for me,  _ because  _ of me.”

 

_ No, we can’t, they’ll come for us  _ she whimpered through the bond. 

 

_ Hush.  _

 

The impending orgasm was gathering low in her belly, the inexorable circling of Kylo’s fingers driving her towards that edge. 

 

_ I’ll catch you,  _ he told her as he took a nipple between his kiss-swollen lips. 

 

This orgasm was almost painful, all of Rey’s limbs going rigid as the world went white.  _ So pretty,  _ Kylo told her, petting  her again, his giant palm nearly able to span the space beneath her breasts.  _ So perfect, so pretty, mine. All for me.  _

 

Kylo kept murmuring to Rey and stroking her flushed skin until Rey’s heartbeat had slowed and the secondary beat could be separated from the first. 

 

(Their bond seemed to thrum in time to her pulse.) 

 

“Once more, you can come one more time, right?” Kylo asked, kissing Rey’s eyelids.  _ Are you okay? Should I stop? _

 

_...you’ll come with me? _

 

_ Of course. _

 

Kylo braced himself over Rey and kissed her slowly, sweetly. He’d waited this long to see to himself; he could wait a bit more. With Rey (at least in bed) it seemed he’d found some self-control. 

 

He guided Rey’s hand down to her swollen, wet cunny. “However you like,” Kylo said, and Rey’s head twitched on the pillow as her fingers began to slowly circle and rub. 

 

“So pretty,” Kylo said again as he nudged against Rey’s hot, sticky entrance. 

 

“Ooh,” Rey squeaked as Kylo slowly seated sank into her wet heat. 

 

Kylo reached into the bond, skimming through Rey’s sensations. For a moment he was totally enthralled with a woman’s experience of sex, but then he found Rey’s thoughts and gave them voice. 

 

“You think this orgasm might swallow you up and spit you out as a different person,” Kylo said as he worked into her strong and smooth. He needed to get her there quick; after feeling Rey’s previous orgasms through the bond he was on a hair trigger. 

 

“You  _ like  _ this,” he whispered as he skimmed over her mind again. “You  _ like  _ being at my mercy, at only being able to feel and feel. No thought necessary here, no decisions, just you and me, forever.”

 

Her fingers were working faster now and occasionally brushing against the place where they were joined.  It was driving him mad. 

 

“Come on, sweet girl,” he said through gritted teeth. “Come for me.”

 

His eyes were boring into hers, blown wide with lust, and he saw watched as the pleasure claimed her. He followed her over the edge and they were caught in a feedback loop of visceral bliss- they didn’t know where one ended and the other began; they didn’t know their names or their pasts; they existed suspended in that one moment of perfect togetherness and ecstacy. 

 

Kylo managed to pry himself up first. He released the hold he’d had on Rey and tugged her limbs into her so she could curl on her side as she usually liked. 

_ You okay?  _ He asked as he massaged the blood back into her shoulders. 

 

She didn’t answer in words, but a wave of bone-deep contentment rolled over him. 

 

He kissed her cheek and walked into the bathroom. He rinsed himself off in the shower, dragged on a pair of sleep pants, and soaked a wash rag. 

 

“No, don’t sleep yet princess,” he chided Rey as he sat by her on the edge of the bed. 

 

_ Why not? _

 

“You can sleep after you’re tidy and have had some water,” Kylo said. He couldn’t let them fall into the habit of exclusively communicating in their heads. Down that path lay destruction. 

 

“Don’t care if I’m clean,” said Rey, not opening her eyes. 

 

“I do. It’s my mess, I’ll clean it up.” Kylo gently ran the cloth down her neck, over her breasts, across her belly, behind her knees, and finally ended at the junction of her thighs. 

 

She jumped when the cloth hit her oversensitive flesh. 

 

“It’s okay. It’s okay,” Kylo crooned. 

 

After Rey was relative clean, had consumed half a cup of water and was securely wrapped in Kylo’s arms contemplation set in. 

 

“I can hear you thinking,” Kylo whispered into the dark. “Go to sleep.”

 

Rey was quiet. 

 

“It’s normal,” said Kylo, answering the slightly bewildered curiosity he could feel emanating from her. “And we enjoyed it.”

 

“Yes,” she said, rolling over to kiss him. “And I think that’s what matters.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO. That's one of the filthier things I've ever written. Thank you for reading, I love you guys! <3 Chris


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The duel!

Symun was the one who finally figured out Rey’s strategy. He’d been milling around with the other knights watching Kylo and Rey fight when he said, “Can’t you just read his mind?”

 

Kylo and Rey pulled apart and looked hard at Symun. 

 

“I mean, you’re both Force-users. Force-users do that brain interrogation thing.” Symun held out his hand, his fingers bent and tense. Clearly he’d seen Kylo in action. 

 

“Yes, but we can read each other’s minds,” said Rey. 

 

Kylo looked at her sharply. “But not Phasma. She’s not a Force-user, she’s not even Force-sensitive. She and Hux are about as sensitive as rocks,” he said, a small smile growing. “You can’t beat  _ me  _ because I’m bigger, faster,  _ and  _ can sense what you’ll do-”

 

“Humble too,” scowled Rey. She  _ would  _ beat him. She may have to practice for another twenty years, but she would do it.

 

“-but with Phasma you just have to be smarter. Maybe a little faster, too. That would help,” Kylo finished. He was grinning at her now, and he was beautiful. 

 

“My turn, then,” said Roytus, hefting a pike and turning to Rey. “Remember, Phasma duels with a broadsword-”

 

“A broadsword?” exclaimed Rey. “Seriously?”

 

Roytus turned to Kylo. “You didn’t even tell her about Phasma’s  _ weapon?”  _

 

Kylo just shrugged. Roytus turned back to Rey. 

 

“Yes, a broadsword. It’s got the electromagnetic field like the pike, so you can’t just cut it in two, and her weapon will be shorter and heavier than this.”

 

Rey listened attentively before beginning her sparring match with Roytus. It took her several rounds before she was able to get the balance of mind and body- she had to be quick, had to concentrate on her feet and her saber-arm, but she  _ also  _ had to be aware of Roytus and anticipate what he was going to do just before he did it. 

 

She couldn’t seem to find his mind during the first round, although when it came to the actual fighting she didn’t do too badly. This form of fighting came naturally to her. It was a dance, and dance through space and time; she just had to be where the enemy wasn’t.

 

As for the saber, it was  _ fabulous.  _ It had felt like a friend since that first night, and now it felt like an extension of herself. 

 

_ I’m glad it likes you,  _ Kylo thought. 

 

He was distracting her. Rey could ask her questions later. 

 

When the first match ended Kylo walked forward to talk to Rey. “You aren’t using the force correctly. You don’t have to be  _ in  _ his mind, not for a fight. Just feel him through the Force.”

 

Roytus shifted uncomfortably during this conversation but gamely took up a fighting stance against her again. During this round Rey was overly distracted by trying to feel Roytus in the force and within about a minute he’d jabbed her in the thigh with his pike. He leg twitched and gave out beneath her, and the room filled with the smell of smoking leggings. 

 

“Holy shit,” said Rey as Symun and Galen tugged her to her feet. “No wonder you guys win every battle you fight.”

 

Rey could feel Kylo’s anger and concern.  _ We’re leader and apprentice out here, remember? _

 

She received only dark grumblings from his end of the bond. 

 

She turned to Roytus one more time. “Let me just… try to get a grip on you before we start. Pretend the ref is talking.”

 

“Will there be a ref?” someone whispered. Rey ignored them. 

 

When she tried to look with the Force she could see Roytus in front of her, Kylo’s dark shadow off to the side, and the other five knights milling around. Now that she’d done it… it was so obvious. 

 

“Again,” said Rey, dropping into a fighting stance. 

 

Fighting this way was  _ hard.  _ It was as mentally draining as it was physically, but she and Roytus went fifteen hard-earned minutes without either laying a weapon on the other. 

 

“Enough,” Kylo said eventually, pushing himself away from the wall where he’d been lounging. 

 

“Can we get a time limit, do you think?” asked Cuv. 

 

“Doubt it, mate,” said Galen. “Hux is out for blood.”

 

“So the fight is actually for blood, then?” asked Mitska. “I thought that was a rumor.”

 

Kylo was getting angry. He didn’t need people to point out all the problems with this idea,  _ he knew them already.  _

 

“How the fuck is she supposed to draw blood when Phasma wears all that fucking armor?” asked Roytus. 

 

“The armor has joints!” yelled Kylo. “We’ll... figure it out. Now leave!”

 

“It’s been a while since he’s had a tantrum like this,” stage-whispered Symun as he left the ring.

 

“Is it that bad?” asked Rey. 

 

“It’s not good.” 

 

~~~

Kylo and Rey spent the night before the fight curled around one another in bed. “You are going to have to aim for the joints in her armour to win the fight,” said Kylo. “Either that or you have to hit the same spot on her armor repeatedly to break through it.”

 

Rey silently accepted that information. 

 

“If I put up a good fight but lose… what happens?”

 

“Don’t think like that,” said Kylo. “Don’t psych yourself out.”

 

“I need to know,” Rey said, turning to look at Kylo’s shadowy face. “What happens?”

 

Kylo held a breath before letting it out. “Probably nothing. We stitch you up and everyone shrugs it off as a fight picked by two hotheads and fought by a novice against a lifelong warrior.”

 

It should have made Rey feel better. It didn’t. 

 

The morning of the fight came early. Rey didn’t remember falling asleep, and she half-suspected that Kylo had sent her to sleep in the end. The match was early and up in the training arena. It wasn’t an official match; it wasn’t recorded with command, and so it needed to be over as soon as possible. 

 

The training room was packed. All of the officers Rey recognized from the lunch room were there, as well as all the nights and what appeared to be all of Hux’s support staff. A massive figure in silver armor stood in the center of the ring slowly swinging a massive sword. Hux stood a few feet away. 

 

_ You’ve got this,  _ Kylo told her before he swaggered into the ring. “I see you’ve brought an audience to your humiliation, general. It’s a pity you can’t fight, or we could see this done ourselves.”

 

Hux flushed red. 

 

“I think it’ll be your humiliation,” said Hux stiffly. 

 

_ You’re finding Phasma on the Force, right?  _ Kylo asked Rey as he continued to needle Hux. 

 

Rey wanted to kiss him. 

 

_ Later,  _ he ‘pathed, though Rey swore the word had a bit of a smooch. 

 

Roytus walked into the ring to stand between Phasma and Hux and Kylo and Rey. 

 

“This is to first blood or a twenty-minute draw, whichever comes first,” he said. “Weapons of choice.”

 

“A time limit?” asked Hux.

 

“C’mon, general. This is off the books; we have work to do.”

 

Rey thought that was the right way to spin it. Hux seemed like a stickler for ordered efficiency. 

 

“Fine,” he said, his nostrils doing that flaring thing again. “First blood or twenty minutes.”

 

Rey had a lock on Phasma now. Kylo was right, her presence on the Force was rigid and heavy; a veritable rock. 

 

Kylo and Hux left the ring; Kylo making a big show of allowing Hux to precede him. 

 

“Alright,” said Roytus, backing to the gate. “Go.”

 

For a moment the women just circled each other, neither willing to open themselves up with that first lunge. Rey felt… calm. She could sense Phasma on the Force and Kylo was beside her. How badly could this go?

 

The answer was pretty badly. Rey did well for the first few minutes (or so she thought, when your body is mostly running on adrenaline time ceases to mean anything). She parried and dodged the blows from the Phasma’s sword, which had honestly been understated. 

 

It was technically a broadsword. That said, it was a broadsword that Rey suspected no one other than Kylo could even lift. Wicked blue-white electric currents ran over the deep grey metal and when it clashed with Rey’s saber it crackled. 

 

Phasma was strong. Her armour seemed impervious to saber strikes and her endurance was  _ far  _ better than Rey’s. That’s was Rey’s failing in the end. Skill and speed and anticipation of Phasma’s moves only got Rey so far. She’d never had to spar with anyone for this long before. 

 

Phasma smacked Rey in the ribs with the flat of her blade. It didn’t draw blood so the fight didn’t end, but the electric shock had Rey gritting her teeth and her heart fluttering. 

 

Phasma’s next strike was to Rey’s free arm; she hadn’t kept her elbow as tightly tucked as she should have. Again there was pain, and again the fight resumed. 

 

Rey did land blows of her own, and she parried or deflected all of the other woman’s strongest attacks. It was just that Phasma  _ kept coming,  _ she never faltered, and Rey was quickly losing energy. 

 

The worst of the blows was high on Rey’s thighs. It was enough to make her lose her balance and fall to the floor. Why wouldn’t the woman just cut Rey and get it over with?

 

Rey pushed herself back up onto shaking legs. She found Phasma’s mind again, and she felt irritating smugness, superiority, a god-like sense of rightness. 

 

How  _ dare  _ she?

 

Rey pushed into the next layer of the larger woman’s thoughts as Phasma came at her again. This time Rey wasn’t worried about making contact, she just had to stay out of range. 

 

Rey skimmed through the surface of Phasma’s mind. She and Hux… they never meant to really win this fight. This was about humiliation, about calling Kylo’s judgement into question. 

 

How  _ dare  _ they? How  _ dare  _ they try to threaten Kylo, to try to threaten Kylo through  _ her _ ?

 

Phasma swung that huge fucking sword at Rey again, and Rey batted it aside. She didn’t feel it this time, she didn’t even feel it glance off her arm. 

 

“How dare you?” Rey hissed, advancing on Phasma.  “How dare you try to threaten me, to take down Kylo?”

 

Maybe saying it all out loud wasn’t the best idea, but Rey’s entire world had just narrowed down to vengeance, pure and sweet. 

 

Phasma hit Rey’s saber hand on Rey’s next lunge making Rey’s fingers spasm. Her saber fell to the floor, and Rey kept advancing, unarmed, towards her larger opponent. She could feel the confusion and fear radiating off her opponent now. 

 

“You bitch,” she said. Rey stuck out a palm and in a blink Phasma was flying into the glass barrier, her head snapping back at the impact. She flew backwards and into the glass again, face first, before Rey let Phasma’s body hit the floor.

 

The armored woman pushed herself up and slowly raised her visor. Phasma’s hair was pale blond and her eyes were a beautiful blue. She was the opposite of the gnarled hag Rey had been picturing. 

 

“You cheated,” Phasma said, touching her gauntleted fingers to the trickle of blood coming out of her nose.

 

“No, actually, I didn’t,” said Rey. “I drew first blood.”

 

Hux ran into the ring and pointed at Rey. “She did cheat! She did!”

 

Kylo entered just after Hux. “The rules were with any weapon. You didn’t specify that the Force was off limits,” said Kylo cooly. 

 

Rey could feel his triumph singing up and down their bond

 

“Should we vote on it?” Kylo suggested. “Or call it a draw?”

 

“A draw,” said Hux stiffly. He didn’t speak to Phasma or even look at Rey as he walked out of the room. 

 

Once Hux was out of sight the knights rushed Rey. 

 

“That was fucking awesome!” Symun kept yelling.

 

“You didn’t keep you elbow up!” Roytus scolded. The other joined in, all happy voices and great thumps on the back. 

 

Rey had half expected them to be mad. Mad that couldn’t best Phasma straight on, one on one. 

 

“She needs those burns checked,” Kylo said abruptly. “We’ll see you at lunch.”

 

Kylo hooked a hand under Rey’s arm and towed her out to the lift. “I’m really okay,” Rey started to protest as the doors opened to the elevator. 

 

“I’m not,” said Kylo. As the doors closed he lunged at her, pinning her against the lift cage, his hands and teeth everywhere at once. 

 

When the door dinged he grabbed her hand and tugged her down the corridor behind him like a kite. 

 

Rey managed to say, “Real subtle, Kylo,” before they were on each other ans the doors to their room closed. 

 

“I wanted to fuck you on that floor,” said Kylo, ripping Rey’s shirt down the middle. Her breast band suffered the same fate. “I wanted to fuck you right there, to make them all see that you’re  _ mine,  _ my woman. I wanted them to see and feel envy.”

 

“I wanted you to fuck me,” Rey gasped, wrestling Kylo’s shirt off as he knelt to yank at her pants. “I wanted to fuck you over the body of my kill and I didn’t even kill her, I don’t know how to explain it, but I wanted you so bad, so bad.”

 

Finally they were naked and they collided like continents, like this was war and they didn’t care who came out alive. There was no subtlety here, no coyness or foreplay. Adrenaline was their drug and victory was their prep and when Kylo finally thrust into her she screamed. 

 

“Yes,” he said, yanking her head back with a fistful of her hair. “Scream my name, tell the whole fucking base whose bed you share.”

 

“Yours,” she said before biting his shoulder and sinking her fingers into his biceps. She would wear his marks and so he would wear hers. 

 

They were on the floor just inside their room and Rey skidded back with each thrust. Kylo bent her knee back to her chest and Rey arched her neck, gasping at how deep it felt that way. Kylo was in her head, in her cunny, and she wondered vaguely that if she cut herself deep enough she might just might find him in her blood, too. 

 

“You’re in me too, Rey. I felt those burns, your rage, your triumph. You’re intoxicating,” Kylo growled over her, his hair tickling her cheeks. 

 

Rey just yanked Kylo down for a kiss. He swallowed her cry of completion when the orgasm dragged her under and when he bit her lip hard enough to make her bleed during his own their bodies rang with pleasure and their kiss tasted of copper and life. 

 

They lay sprawled on the floor for a long while after that, just sharing the contentment and adrenaline let down together. 

 

“I really should put something on those burns,” Kylo said after a while. 

 

“You’ll have to do it right here,” said Rey. “I think I’m too stiff to get up.”

 

Kylo managed to pull Rey to her feet but she insisted that they shower together. It was reminiscent of their first time; of how Kylo had let Rey drowse against his chest while he gently and thoroughly washed her. 

 

“Do I have to go back out?” she asked as he toweled her dry. “The bed looks awfully good.”

 

“Yes,” said Kylo, moving on to his own hair. “You really do have to go back out. I said we’d have lunch with the knights, they’re thinking of this as a victory for them, too.”

 

Kylo was right.  When Rey walked into the Officer’s Mess the knights all stood and cheered again. 

 

“That. was. excellent,” said Durahm. “I wish you could have seen Hux’s face when Phasma started flying through the air. Gold.” He sighed happily. 

 

“Are you ever going to let her go out in the field with us?” asked Symun.

 

Kylo shrugged and took a bite of his salmon. “We’ll see. Things are pretty quiet right now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LADIES AND GENTLEMEN WE HAVE STARTED OUR DESCENT. 
> 
> There are only two chapters left in this story :( So after Sunday evening this will be done! I don't even know how to process that. I like the ending here, I think it fits, but ...I dunno. Does any author ever feel like the ending is good?
> 
> ANYWAY. I have a short, 3 chapter Reylo fic that I will begin posting on Monday (yes it's dirty). I love you all, I appreciate you, and I hope we can hang out in the trash pile again soon! 
> 
> (OKAY but seriously if you have any good drabble or fic ideas hit me up on tumblr @ lonelyspacebabies )


	18. Chapter 18

Things didn’t stay quiet. Snoke wanted to see them again, and once more Kylo was warned against his dangerous attachment to the girl.

 

“If things don’t go better the next time he’s going to enact his fucking plan,” Kylo told Rey when they got into the lift for the ride up. He wished he had another helmet to smash. 

 

“We can’t get any more stuff shielded away, he’ll figure it out if there are too many blank spots,” Rey whispered. 

 

“That’s why the next time we have to act,” Kylo said. 

 

They walked down the hall in silence. “Are we ready?” asked Rey once they were alone again. 

 

“I don’t think we’ll ever be,” said Kylo. “Not unless we have another decade to let you come into your power.” He paced back and forth. “The fight with Phasma established that you can hold your own in a fight while using the force. As long as you can just keep yourself alive and the shields up, I think we can finish this.”

 

“We have to,” said Rey. “Because it’s that or death. He isn’t getting me alive.”

 

That night they huddled under the covers and Kylo slipped into her as they spooned, his arm banded tightly around Rey, holding her close. 

 

Time continued to slip by and every day had more of a desperate tinge to it. The two of them trained long after the other knights were done, and they trained with such an intensity that the others began to comment on it. 

 

“You know something I don’t?” Roytus asked Kylo one day before the dinner bell rang. Kylo and Rey were still in the training ring, their clothes wet with sweat. 

 

“Many things,” said Kylo. “But no… not in the way you mean. Faster!” he yelled, distracted by Rey’s attack to his left side. 

 

Roytus watched for a few more minutes before shaking his head and walking away. 

 

On day seventy four Rey went to the med bay. She’d gotten her period and needed to deal with it. She typically got them two or three times a year in the desert, but now that she had access to the med bay she wanted to take advantage of it.  _ Should have done this sooner,  _ Rey thought to herself. 

 

Kylo noticed that something was off about her that night. He pulled her into his lap to read (they’d made it to The Two Towers now) and when his hands slid into her hair and cupped a breast she stiffened. 

 

“No?” he asked. 

 

“No, not tonight,” said Rey, blushing a little. For the first time in months she felt awkward with Kylo. 

 

“Okay,” he said, hugging her more tightly to his chest.  “Are you okay?”

 

“Yes,” she said, turning back to the story. 

 

Kylo was curious. She’d turned him down before, as had he, but usually when he reached for her she’d smack his hand away and say something like, “Mitska kicked my ass today, I don’t need you to abuse it as well.” Her reticence tonight was… intriguing. 

 

He peered down the bond to see if the source of her discomfort was an easily visible thing.

 

“Your period?” he asked, trying to keep the smile out of his voice. “All this embarrassment for your period?”

 

Rey turned her face into his neck. “It’s gross,” she said. “I got the implant though, so this should be my last one for three years.” She unraveled her sleeve enough to show Kylo the little incision, now sealed. 

 

“Mine expires in a year,” said Kylo, showing her his arm as well. “I’m actually surprised that you didn’t bleed before now.”

 

More blushes; before Rey Kylo hadn’t met anyone who actually went red and flushed. 

 

“The healer told me that since my nutrient and body fat levels are better my body thinks it’s safe to bleed again. I always thought I was just trying to conserve water in the desert.”

 

“Makes sense,” said Kylo, kissing the top of her head. “Are you sore?”

 

A half shrug. “Not really. Maybe a little. Can we read?”

 

(She was embarrassed still, his sweet, innocent girl.)

 

_ Did you know orgasms help to relieve period cramps?  _ he asked. Kylo thought she’d smack him if he said it out loud. 

 

_ Really? ...Oh! Kylo, no!  _

 

Kylo laughed and tickled Rey along her ribs. “One of these days it’ll be ‘Kylo, yes!’” he teased. 

 

She laughed and settled back down for their bedtime story. 

 

Everything seemingly fell apart on day eighty. They’d stayed late in the officer’s mess with the other knights for dinner. Rey had eaten a huge bowl of lasagna and Symun had amused them all by telling Rey how he came to join the First Order. 

 

“So it was pretty much ‘join up or die’,” he said, shoving another cookie into his mouth. “I felt like a pirate.”

 

Kylo rolled his eyes. 

 

They’d walked back to their room in companionable silence and had fallen into their bedtime routine. 

 

Rey had been brushing her teeth when she heard Kylo open the little closet.

 

“What are these?” he asked, his voice hollow and wooden. 

 

Rey turned, half-knowing what she would see. On her shelf, where her spare change of clothing usually lay were seventy nine perfect tick marks. 

 

“You know what they are,” she said. She knew he’d find them eventually, but why now? Why today?

 

“Why, Rey? Why are you still counting the days, why do you still want to leave?”

 

Across their bond she hears  _ Why do you want to leave, why do you want to leave ME? _

 

“I- I don’t want to leave anymore,” she said. She had to get this right: this mattered, it mattered so much. “It’s not… it’s not how long I’ve been here. I’ve always counted, I need to do it, it’s-”

 

She changed to their connection; it was easier if she didn’t have to speak it out loud. 

 

_ “It’s not how many days since… it’s how many days I’ve gone  _ until.  _ Until I’m home again.” _

 

_ “Home to your train car? The hovel where you nearly died of starvation alone?” _

 

(His thoughts tasted of iron and salt.)

 

“ _ Not the train, not the desert. At first it was home to my parents… until you took me. At some point when I was first here I realized that of course they weren’t coming for me, that they never were. By then it was a habit, and I wanted to know… I wanted to know how many days I’d gone until I found a home again. It’s been six thousand, six hundred and twelve.” _

 

(Endless silver tick marks on a pewter wall that stretched from Rey into infinity).

 

_ “I can give you a home. I can  _ be _ your home.” _

 

(Desperation and anger in his mind, fear and panic in hers.)

 

_ “I think you can, I think you’re right, but… Snoke could take it all away. What if this is it, and we die on day three of you being home? What if  _ you  _ die on day three of home? What if Snoke kills you and you  _ leave me alone _?” _

 

Those last three words were so imbued with fear, a fear so primal and old, that Kylo staggered back. He’d dropped into deep water that he didn’t know how to navigate. He’d had no idea that she’d thought of the marks as days she’d survived until she was home again. He wanted to kill Plutt all over again, to kill her parents, to kill everyone who had ever let her brilliant light burn so low all alone in the dark. 

 

“I’m sorry.” He moved to Rey, dropped to his knees in front of her, and pressed his face to her stomach. “I’m so sorry.”

 

She combed her fingers through his curls. 

 

Kylo stiffened. “Snoke wants us.”

 

“Are we-?” Rey asked, uncertainty flooding her. 

 

“We have to,” said Kylo. He pressed his forehead to hers. “We  _ will  _ do this, and then today won’t be six thousand, six hundred and thirteen. It’ll be day one. You can mark those days,  _ our  _ days, any place you want, on anything I have.”

 

Rey kissed him, hard and quick, before they turned to face their future or their end. 

~~~

 

Now that the day, the hour of their trial had come Rey felt calm. The anticipation was over. She would die here or Snoke would, but either way she would be free. 

 

She walked behind Kylo down the long stone path to Snoke’s throne, their shields in place.

 

“Master,” said Kylo, bowing low once more. 

 

“Apprentice,” said Snoke. “Have you mastered your compassion for the girl or has she mastered you?”

 

Kylo bowed his head. “See my thoughts, Supreme Leader. I am my own master.”

 

Snoke  _ hmmmed  _ and bent to look at Kylo, a hand outstretched. Rey threw out her shields, totally blocking Snoke from Kylo’s mind. There was pain, always and forevermore; even Rey’s teeth hurt but she was doing it- Kylo’s thoughts were invisible to the old master.

 

“How?” Snoke asked in that booming voice. 

 

Kylo lit his saber and cut off Snoke’s hand in a swirl of movement, a cobra striking. Snoke’s cry of hurt and fury echoed through the cavern; his displeasure turning the Force to razor blades. 

 

The amount of pressure on Rey’s shields drove her to her knees but she held them, watching through tear-blurred eyes as Snoke rose from his chair and Kylo charged forward. 

 

“Enough,” shouted Snoke as guards began to run into the cavern. “The audacity,” he said, using the force to knock Kylo to the ground and pin him there like a sacrifice to old, old gods. “The audacity of this, my apprentice. You chose a girl over me, over the power I could have given you?”

 

Snoke bent to pick up Kylo’s lightsaber. Rey knew she couldn’t hold the shields much longer, and she didn’t think she could move even a step. 

 

“This is the weakness of your line,” Snoke said as he stood over Kylo, toying with the saber. “Compassion.”

 

He lit the saber as Rey dropped her own shields and threw all of her remaining energy, her faith, her trust, her  _ love  _ down the bond into the man lying there on the floor. 

 

“Not- weakness-” said Kylo through gritted teeth. He was sweating and every vein in his neck was standing out in stark relief as he fought Snoke’s hold on him. 

 

Kylo’s fingers twitched and Snoke staggered. It was enough to break his concentration; Kylo levered up on one elbow and sent Snoke flying back into his throne. The ceiling rumbled and the cave ceiling began to creak. Shards of rock fell as Rey staggered to her feet, stretching out a hand to help hold Snoke down. 

 

It was like trying to hold smoke or prevent the world from turning. Snoke’s power was massive and slippery, an elemental thing, and the cave couldn’t collapse fast enough. 

 

“Kylo,” Rey shouted, and she heaved her saber in Snoke’s direction. It rocketed towards him, buoyed by the Force, and struck him through the heart as the cavern began to collapse in earnest. 

 

The Force ripped through them as Snoke died, knocking them both off their feet. Rubble began to fall so Rey and Kylo got up once more (one more time, we can do this, just make it a few feet, a few feet more) and staggered towards the door. There were guards there, but this didn’t require skill, didn’t require finesse. Kylo tossed his saber to Rey who made short work of the guards to the right. As guards rushed from the left Kylo broke their necks, one by one. 

 

The Knights of Ren were pouring down the corridor as Rey and Kylo ran into the hall. 

 

“What have you done?” Roytus asked as the earth shook and the cavern began to fall in on itself. 

 

“What needed to be done,” said Kylo. “Let us go. Just let us leave.”

 

Roytus and Kylo looked at each other for a long moment as the other knights shifted uncomfortably. 

 

“Five minutes max,” said Roytus. That’s all the headstart I can give you.”

 

“That’s enough,” said Kylo.He dragged Rey past the knights into the lift and slammed a button. 

 

“This is the way out, right?” she asked him. 

 

“Yes- but- look. We can’t leave yet. If we leave Hux is in charge and the First Order just goes on doing what it’s doing. There’s a power vacuum, and we’ll have been the cause.”

 

_ You should see me now, Leia,  _ he thought to himself. “If we capture or kill Hux  _ we  _ can change things. There’s always a middle ground,” he said as the lift doors opened. 

 

Troopers were jogging through the halls. They weren’t looking for Rey and Kylo, at least not yet. Only the Knights knew that Kylo and Rey had been downstairs when the cavern collapsed. 

 

Hux and Phasma were in the command center. Other officers were scurrying around reading stats off screens and talking loudly into com sets. “What’s going on?” asked Kylo, striding into the room. 

 

“Possible tremors,” barked an aide. 

 

“No fault lines here, no shocks felt in other parts of the sector,” yelled another. By now Kylo was standing next to Hux, pretending to read over his shoulder. 

 

“It was me,” said Kylo quietly. 

 

Hux turned slowly to look at Kylo, and slowly the rest of the room fell silent. 

 

“What did you say?” asked Hux, his words clipped and quiet. 

 

“I did it. I killed Snoke and collapsed the cavern.”

 

Rey still had Kylo’s saber and she lit it, filling the air with its ominous hum. 

 

“So the Supreme Leader is dead?” asked Hux. 

 

Kylo raised an eyebrow as Hux fell to his knees, grasping at his throat. “Is he?” asked Kylo.

 

“Long live the Supreme Leader,” croaked Hux.

~~~

The rest of the night passed in a blur. Rey stayed by Kylo’s side as orders and messages were fired off. She was muzzy-headed, exhausted from fighting Snoke and the adrenaline burn-off. She couldn’t relax; she kept expecting Phasma or another guard to turn up and try to take Kylo down. 

 

Information flowed around her as she watched quietly. She was glad she wasn’t dead, that was a fundamental truth: Rey wanted to live. 

 

She just wasn’t sure about the rest of it. They were supposed to leave together, to go that cabin by the lake she’d seen in Kylo’s dream, but at the same time… he was right. If they left the First Order to Hux it would only mean bad things for the people beneath him. They also couldn’t just let the resistance fighters have control. The rebels didn’t have a more cohesive plan than Hux did. 

 

Rey woke (when had she fallen asleep?) to Hux striding into the room, his face red and his hair disheveled. 

 

“You called the rebels!” he shouted, spit flying. 

 

“I did,” said Kylo, not moving from his deep slouch. 

 

“How DARE you?” asked Hux, lunging at Kylo. Kylo’s palm came up, whip fast, and Hux hit an invisible wall. 

 

“I won,” said Kylo. “ _ I  _ killed Snoke,  _ I  _ claimed leadership,  _ I  _ decided that we should listen to what the resistance fighters had to say. This is my decision, Hux. If you don’t like it you can leave or you can face those one of those court marshals you love so much.”

 

Kylo stood, brushing imaginary wrinkles out of his clothing. Rey followed his lead. “I assume the rebel contingent is here?”

 

Hux was standing, fists clenched, in front of Kylo. “You’ll regret this, Ren. I’ll be sure of it.”

 

Kylo brushed past the other man on the way to the door. Only Rey could hear Kylo mumble, “I already do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp. We're almost to the end.


	19. Extended Epilogue

Kylo and Rey rode down to the ground floor together. There was tension between them; neither was sure they had done the right thing, neither was confident of the future. 

 

Before the doors of the elevator opened Rey took Kylo’s hand and squeezed it. He tried to smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. 

 

_ It’s so cold,  _ Rey thought, looking around. She realized with a jolt that she hadn’t  _ really  _ been outside in months. 

 

_ It’s October,  _ Kylo told her, but then they were both concentrating on the small group of people walking down the landing strip towards them. 

 

It was a group of four, two women and two men. The taller of the women had a shock of purple hair, the older of them was wrapped in a charcoal covered cape. One of the men was wearing mirrored glasses, the other a brown and orange leather jacket. 

 

The purple haired woman stepped forward when the little group reached Kylo and Rey. “Kylo Ren?” she asked sticking out a hand. “I’m Admiral Holdo. We’re glad to be here.”

 

“Hello, Ben,” said the older woman quietly. 

 

Kylo sighed and stepped back by Rey. “Rey… this is my mother. Leia Organa. Leia, this is Rey.”

 

Leia stepped forward and took Rey’s hand. “It’s wonderful to meet you.”

 

Rey wasn’t sure what to say- she hadn’t thought much about Kylo’s parents. “Nice to meet you as well,” she said. 

 

The men were introduced as Poe and Finn. They were all smiles; Poe kept pointing to different First Order crafts and exclaiming about aerodynamics and fan belts as they walked into the base. 

 

“Before we go into conference room and ...diplomatic hostilities commence,” Kylo said, pausing outside the door, “I wanted to tell you that I do want to compromise. I want to come up with the most efficient government system possible that still is in touch with the needs of the people.”

 

“Wonder where you heard all that?” Leia muttered as she brushed by her son. 

 

Negotiations took days, and Rey didn’t need or want a place in the room. She didn’t know about government, she could barely write her own name. Kylo seemed to have been born for the role, and now she knew that yes- he had been. 

 

They still slept together, their hands tightly clinging to the other even in sleep. Rey didn’t ask what was going to happen and Kylo didn’t tell her. 

 

It was day eighty six when Kylo found Rey outside wrapped in one of his coats. “What are you doing?” he asked. “It’s warm in the greenery, you could stay there.”

 

Rey turned to him, the wind blowing pieces of her hair over her face. “It smells so clean here. Like metal, and water.”

 

Kylo came to stand before her, blocking out the breeze. “I’m trying, Rey. I’m trying to sort this out without anyone being killed.”

 

“I know,” she said, squeezing his hand before releasing it. “How is Hux taking it?”

 

“He’s been offered a position on the transition council. That’s helped, but honestly he isn’t taking it well. He’s the one I’m going to have to watch out for.”

 

“What about your mother?”

 

Kylo started to tug Rey towards a little copse of trees, their leaves gone. 

 

“What did these grow?” she asked. 

 

“Nothing. They just grow; they don’t make fruit. And as for my mother… she’s happy. Happy that there’s a future, happy that she’s seeing me again.”

 

“How long had it been?”

 

Kylo dropped down against a traa and tugged Rey down into his lap. “Since I was fifteen,” he said. “Nearly another fifteen years.”

 

Rey couldn’t imagine knowing you had a family out there and just leaving them behind. What if he did that to her? What if he was already doing it?

 

_ I would never,  _ he whispered across the bond before taking her lips in a gentle kiss. “I’m trying to arrange things so that we can leave and go to the cabin in Sector 1.”

 

“Really?” Rey couldn’t stop the pathetic drop of hope coloring her voice. 

 

“Yes, really.”

 

They left the base on day ninety one; eleven days after Snoke’s death. They still hadn’t discussed that. Rey just woke up to Kylo’s kisses. “Come on,” he said. “Put on your coat.”

 

She did, shuffling tiredly along behind him. He led her to the landing strip, to a fully packed carrier. Leia was standing there, a small but genuine smile on her lips. 

 

“Ben told me what you’ve done,” Leia said, gently kissing Rey’s cheek. “I wanted to thank you, and welcome you to the family.”

 

“Um, thank you,” said Rey. “I am happy to have met you.”

 

As the carrier gained altitude Rey watched Leia standing alone on the landing pad waving them off. 

 

“I like her,” she said to Kylo. “Why didn’t you ever, you know. Talk about her, or your family, or…”

 

Kylo glanced at Rey and then back at the controls. “I promise,” he said, “that I will tell you everything. But for now- please- can we take this one day at a time? Snoke is  _ dead.  _ We did it. We  _ won.  _ We won, Rey.”

 

He was smiling at her now, really smiling. He had little crinkles in the corners of his eyes, and Rey found herself smiling back. “We did,” she said, and then she laughed. 

 

The cabin was even more beautiful in person. “Oh,” Rey said, her nose pressed to the glass of the window. “Look!” 

 

The trees were bare now, but the sky was blue and the water shone in the late-autumn light. “There’s so much water,” she whispered. 

 

Kylo thought that he’d never, ever get tired of looking at the world through Rey’s eyes. Sometimes it was enough to make him want to weep.

 

They good-naturedly carried supplies back and forth from the carrier into the little cabin. It was cozy, just one big room and a small bathroom and closet in the back. To Rey, after the deprivation of the desert and the cold uniformity of the FIrst Order it was palatial. 

 

He took her in front of the fire that night. They’d eaten some of the rations from the base and Rey had smiled happily, content to be warm and alone with Kylo. Kylo hadn’t been particularly interested in his rations so he set them aside and just watched Rey. 

 

“I like the smell of the fire,” she’d said, looking over at him, and he’d leaned over and kissed her. They’d both still had their eyes open, and he could see the surprise and pleasure in her eyes. 

 

Kylo kissed every inch of her that night, watching the way the firelight played over her skin, the way her belly quivered when he kissed her cunt achingly slowly, the way her eyes went dark when he poured himself into her and whispered her name. 

 

It took several days for Kylo to notice the tick marks. They were scratched into the headboard of the ancient old oak bed, and when he counted there were more than seventy. They hadn’t been here nearly that long, Snoke hadn’t been dead that long, and counting back Kylo only had a guess as to what Rey was counting. 

 

She was sitting out on the dock wrapped in a blanket and watching the water. When Kylo sat down beside her she tossed her blanket around him as well. 

 

“I saw the marks on the bed,” he said.

 

Rey didn’t look at him, she just rested her head on his shoulder. 

 

“There’s an awful lot of them.”

 

“I couldn’t sleep last night,” Rey said. 

 

“What are they counting now?”

 

Rey sent him an image of their first time together and how afterwards Kylo had kissed away her tears.  _ I’m counting the days since I haven’t been alone. Counting the days I’ve loved you.” _

 

Kylo turned, cupped her face in his hands and kissed her. “I love you,” he said, kissing her eyes and nose and cheeks. “I love you too.”

 

He told Rey of his childhood and father and mother on the night of the first snowfall. Rey had played in it all day; now they were curled together by the window watching as the sins of the world were covered in a clean layer of white. 

 

“That’s when I went to Snoke. He told me he didn’t fear me, that he never would. He told me that he would train me, that he would revel in my power. It was tempting, too tempting, and I- I don’t think that I wanted to forgive myself. I’d killed my father, killed him with my power and ego and stupidity. Suddenly I  _ deserved  _ those looks of fear I’d always gotten from others. Going somewhere to forget, where no one would know or look at me like that… I left.”

 

Rey held him. 

 

Together they had nineteen thousand, two hundred and three days. Twice a year they flew back to the First Order base to cast their votes in the Senate. They taught dozens of young Force-users and they shared fifty two winters and neither of them was ever lonely again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it! That's all I got, folks. Thank you so much for sticking it out with me. I had so much fun writing this, and you all made it even better. I'd like to personally thank (in no particular order) anoonzee, CaraRose, Elliesmeow, and Phoenixwolfgirl. These four encouraged me without ceasing, and I essentially wrote the second half of this story for them. 
> 
> In my mind Kylo and Rey live in Chewie's old cabin in Maine for the rest of their days. They vote their Senate seats twice a year and run a camp for Force-using children every summer. 
> 
> I've got a three-chapter little mini-fic coming out tomorrow, so watch out for that if you're interested! Seriously, I love you guys so much. Thanks for everything. 
> 
> Love, Chris
> 
> PS. I don't care if you're reading this in 10 years, I will ALWAYS appreciate a comment.


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